


he's just not that into you

by frougge



Series: and every february [1]
Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Actor Doyoung, Alternate Universe - He's Just Not That Into You (2009) Fusion, Bartender Johnny, Kim Dongyoung | Doyoung-centric, M/M, and besties!! god why why why love win, dojaeyong are roomies, gigi and alex au, i think that's obvious anw, side jaeyong, sorry im a genius..
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-08
Updated: 2020-12-08
Packaged: 2021-03-09 19:47:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 50,927
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27761731
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/frougge/pseuds/frougge
Summary: “The exception?” Doyoung huffs, “well—what if I’m the exception as well? What if I’m going to meet Seungyoun out on the town in like a month or whatever and it turns out we’re like—I don’t know, soulmates or some shit. Destined to be together.”“Hate to say this, but you’re not the exception,” Johnny says, leaning even further forward, his elbows flat against the bar. Doyoung stares at him, his mouth falling open, “exceptions are rare, yeah? You’re the rule.”“Which is?”“If a guy doesn’t call you, he doesn’t want to call you,” Johnny says. “If a guy treats you like shit, he doesn’t care about you.”
Relationships: Kim Dongyoung | Doyoung/Suh Youngho | Johnny
Series: and every february [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1808488
Comments: 22
Kudos: 105





	he's just not that into you

**Author's Note:**

> happy one year! started writing this fic exactly a year ago today after watching the greatest romcom (he's just not that into you) like five times in a row. what a day what a day! 
> 
> big thank u to the bestie kinnie who proofread this like three separate times LOL and made it readable<3 you can find their works [here](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tofugumball/pseuds/tofugumball)!!
> 
> anw before we get into it:  
> \- this is an au of the movie he's just not that into you (2009) which i recommend watching bc its a banger. bradley coopers parts r atrocious tho i HATE THAT MAN!!! but alex and gigi.. sigh. theyre so nice their arc makes me go crazy. and janine sexy as hell soo. anw that being said though a lot of the plot is lifted straight from the movie (LOL) a lot of it is also added so hopefully it wont be . too predictable for those whove watched the movie<3  
> \- this is the prequel (dont ask me why it drops six months after the sequel) to [he's just that into you](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24984757) which i think is a classic personally. that focuses on the jaeyong sidearc that appears here but isnt fully delved into  
> \- also @$#@ just a disclaimer: when doyoung goes on dates w some kpoppies (woodz, some ncts, some x1s, some random man) they are sometimes slammed in the text broken heart emoji this is just for the storys purposes i dont mean any of this seriously @#$#@
> 
> anw hope u enjoy ^__^

“He’s the one,” Doyoung says—declares, really, clutching one of their throw pillows close to his chest as he stares up at the ceiling, a dazed smile on his face. “God, _god,_ and when I elope in the middle of the night next week?”

“You say that after practically every first date you go on,” Taeyong says, though he shifts in his seat to face Doyoung nonetheless. “Care to enlighten me as to why—uh, who was it, this time?”

“Seungyoun.”

“Care to enlighten me as to why Seungyoun’s the one?”

“Well, starting with the obvious reasons, he was very nice and sweet and smart, too, but also attractive and actually funny—you know, the full package. But—more importantly, he remembered what drink I like when we were ordering a second round, which was his idea, by the way.” Doyoung almost lets out a dreamy sigh before he realizes just how much Taeyong would clown him for it and instead settles on hugging the pillow closer to his chest, “he hugged me when we were saying goodbye, too, and I swear, it just felt _right_.”

“So no kiss?” Taeyong shakes his head in mock disappointment. He raises his eyebrows, grinning under his breath, as he picks out a leftover kernel from his bowl of popcorn and throws it in his mouth, “I think you’re getting worse and worse at this dating shit, king.”

Taeyong’s sarcasm flies completely over Doyoung’s head.

“No kiss, but he did tell me it was nice to meet me,” Doyoung says, “we are literally in love. If you support me in this, I’ll think about letting you be the best man.”

“Weren’t you supposed to elope?”

“Yes, but we’ll have a nice wedding, too,” Doyoung waves his hand as if it’s obvious. “Like, next year, probably, in spring, since that’s the best time to have a wedding. I think. I mean, we might as well, right?”

“What if he’s against marriage?” Taeyong bites on his kernel, wincing at the loud _crack_ it gives. “Have you considered that?”

“If he’s against marriage, we’ll—we’ll make it work, somehow,” Doyoung says, before he lifts up his hand, shaking it back and forth, “but—that’s besides the point. Don’t you get it? The point is I’m in love and when he calls me tomorrow to tell me he can’t stop thinking about me, that he’s thinking about me so much it’s becoming a problem, I’ll play coy and pretend I didn’t think about him, and we’ll go on our second date and third and fourth and so on and so on until we move in together.”

“Mad crazy,” Taeyong says, “I think straight up vibes.”

“And—we’re going to have like, that thing where we don’t decide to move in together, not really, but he just gives me a drawer to leave a change of my clothes in for when I stay over, a toothbrush to keep in his bathroom, etcetera, until we realize we practically live together already,” Doyoung leans back in his seat, closing his eyes and letting the situation play out in his head. “God, I can already see it.”

“Right,” Taeyong says, momentarily distracted by the loud explosion from the tv. Some action movie’s on and the volume should definitely be much lower than it is, but Jaehyun broke the remote the day before and neither of them felt like getting up from the couch to manually turn off the tv. “Have you gotten all the kid names planned out, too?”

“I’ve told you, on multiple occasions, that I don’t want kids,” Doyoung says. He opens his eyes if only to throw his pillow at Taeyong, laughter falling out of his mouth when he fails to block it, “we are going to get a dog, though—from the shelter and shit, I think? We’ll name it something… uh, I don’t know yet, but ask again tomorrow?”

“And if he’s allergic?”

“We’ll just,” Doyoung shrugs, “we’ll just get a hypoallergenic dog, then. Or he’ll double down on his dog allergy meds or whatever. We’ll get a dog, that’s final.”

“Can’t you just get a dog now?” Taeyong rests his elbow on the back of the couch and his head on his palm. He widens his eyes, too, most likely in an attempt to persuade Doyoung, though it only manages to make him look like he’s lost his mind. “You should get one now, a hundred percent, so he’ll like me better than you and I can steal him from you.”

“I’m definitely not doing that,” Doyoung says, “that’s reserved for my boyfriend and my boyfriend only, you clown.” He reaches for Taeyong’s popcorn bowl, only to find it disappointingly empty, save for a few leftover kernels. “Why didn’t you leave any for me?”

“I offered you some like five times,” Taeyong says, more amused than defensive, his lips pulling up into a smirk, “you didn’t reply, probably too busy zoning out thinking about Seungyoun.”

Doyoung frowns at him, though it’s not like Taeyong’s incorrect. “Whatever,” he says, “anyway, uh, I’m almost certain we can’t keep pets here.”

“We could sneak it in and out,” Taeyong argues, leaning forward in his seat, “get one of those huge beach bags to do it. Oh,” his eyes go wide, “we should get an, uh, um, what’s the dog breed that doesn’t bark?”

“I’ve absolutely no clue—”

“—a basenji, yes,” Taeyong snaps his fingers, “oh my god, yes, we should get a basenji. They’re so cute, like, real shit. In my top five dog breeds, at least.”

“Aren’t they big dogs?” Doyoung asks and, when Taeyong nods, adds, as gently as he can, “hate to break it to you, king, but this makes your plan to sneak the dog in and out for peeing purposes kind of flop. Makes it flop spectacularly, even.”

Taeyong narrows, opens his mouth to argue, but no words come out as his shoulders slump with a sigh. “Maybe,” he says, “I’ll think of something, though. Gonna keep you posted, promise.”

“Please do,” Doyoung says, before he shakes his head, “but back to Seungyoun—he was so, so nice and didn’t make fun of my acting major—which like, big plus, obviously, especially considering that half of the guys I go out with tend to clown it. Besides, I’m pretty sure he’s like, loaded and shit; he paid for the bill without pretending he didn’t have his wallet with him first, so chances are he’s a millionaire.”

“That’s how you tell whether someone’s loaded or not?” Taeyong frowns, unimpressed. “Don’t you forget your wallet all the time?”

“I pretend to, because I’m broke,” Doyoung says. He’s going to regret telling Taeyong this later, when they go out for coffee and he actually has to pay for his, but that’s the last thing on his mind right now. “I’m not going to be dropping however much money on a date every week if the guy’s not even going to call me back. Seungyoun did, though, without any hesitation, so he’s clearly in it for the long run.”

“Because he paid for your date?” Taeyong makes a face, leaning back in his seat. “You’re talking about it like—like he’s investing into some start-up business or shit. Wait—does he work in business? Or was a business major? If so, then maybe you’re onto something.”

“He’s Jaehyun’s coworker,” Doyoung reminds him, “well—ex-coworker, starting to work as a full-time freelance artist, now.”

“So not a business major?”

“Of course not,” Doyoung says, “I wouldn’t date a business major if I had to, real shit. I want to fall in love with someone who isn’t like, I don’t know, evil.”

“Good point,” Taeyong stretches out his legs just far enough so that he can push Doyoung’s hip with his toes. “Seungyoun isn’t, though?”

“I already told you that he’s the nicest person alive.”

“Right,” Taeyong says, pressing his lips together. “Right.”

“You’re supposed to support me on this, you fuck,” Doyoung swats at Taeyong’s legs, “you’re supposed to say _of course he is_ or whatever. Come on, at least try to do your job correctly for once.”

“I think he’s yas and wig,” Taeyong sounds completely unbothered. “That any better, my king? Am I spared another day?”

“You’re completely useless,” Doyoung says, shoving at Taeyong’s knees. It doesn’t do much other than make Taeyong laugh, so Doyoung adds, “completely and utterly useless.”

Taeyong waves his hand, smiling. “Anyway,” he says, “I _am_ happy you had a good time with Seungyoun. One hundred percent. Hope he calls back early as shit tomorrow and your five year plan starts and you move in together and get the dog and everything else.”

“Are you just saying that so you get to remain my best friend?”

“Mostly so I get all the best friend benefits, yeah,” Taeyong says, “and, uh, speaking of that,” he picks up his empty bowl, holding it in both of his hands, “spare make me some more popcorn, legend? If you do, it’ll make Seungyoun that much more likely to call you back.”

“You’re saying that like he’s not going to,” Doyoung pouts, even as he takes the bowl out of Taeyong’s hands and stands up. “Tell me he’s going to call me back.”

“He’s the one, isn’t he?” Taeyong asks, voice on the verge of teasing, before he shakes his head. “He’s going to call you back. One hundred percent.”

.

Seungyoun does not call him back.

He doesn’t call Doyoung back the next day, or two days later. Three days later, even—it’s then that Doyoung tells Taeyong, “it’s because you jinxed me,” as they’re watching some shitty Christmas movie with Vanessa Hudgens, despite it being only late October, “you should have knocked on wood or something. God! I can’t believe you ruined all my chances.”

“Isn’t it like, uh, you have to wait at least three days to call someone back?” Taeyong asks. He doesn’t sound convinced, tapping his fingers on the back of the couch. “That’s a thing, isn’t it? Maybe he’s doing that.”

“That’s not a thing,” Doyoung protests, crossing his arms and sinking deeper into the couch. “That can’t be a thing. I know you’re trying to make me feel better but on god that’s not a thing.”

“It is,” Jaehyun tells them from the kitchen, where he’s busy burning yet another set of pancakes. These ones he’s added both red and blue food coloring to in an attempt to make them Halloween themed, but instead they just look very unappetizing. Poisonous, almost. “I do it all the time. Works like a charm, I swear.”

“Oh, yeah?” Taeyong asks, “and how many people have you dated? Or—let me rephrase that, how many people have you dated that you were serious about?”

“Well—zero, besides—”

“—this is really not helping,” Doyoung says, cutting their bickering off before they manage to forget about the real issue at hand. It’s happened more than once, after all. “What if he never calls? What if I’m the idiot who fell in love too fast again?”

“Wait, wait, you fell in love?”

“Ignore him,” Taeyong says, leaning forward to grab one of Doyoung’s hands, giving it a light squeeze. “I’m sure he’s gonna call, yeah? He’s probably just…biding his time. A bit stressed about it or whatever. I’d be stressed if I had to call Kim Doyoung, future broadway star.”

“Right,” Doyoung says. He feels a grin pull at his lips before his synapses fire and his mouth dips into a frown. “As have countless other guys who also didn’t call me back.”

“You said it yourself, this one’s different,” Taeyong insists, thumb skipping over Doyoung’s skin in some poor imitation of a proper rhythm. “Those were idiots. This one—well, he associates himself with Jaehyun, so by default he can’t have an IQ higher than eighteen, but just give him some more time, yeah? It is the day before Halloween, after all, so he’s like, I don’t know, busy finding some costume or shit. Maybe throwing a party. If he doesn’t call by, uh, Friday next week, we’re going to break into his apartment and fuck it up.”

“Oh, fuck yeah,” Jaehyun yells from the kitchen. “Whose apartment, though?”

Seungyoun does not call him back, even after that.

“Do you think I can make him call by staring at my phone?” Doyoung asks in the middle of the following week, as he’s sitting at their kitchen table doing exactly that, hands folded neatly under his chin. “Can I do that? You’re into superhero movies and shit like that, right? This is plausible, isn’t it?”

Whatever Jaehyun says next is unintelligible, considering he first stuffs his mouth full of plain tortilla chips with no dip. When Doyoung sends him a glare, he takes a moment to chew and swallow before he tries again, “I really don’t think so, man. Can’t remember anyone who could do that.”

“You’re useless,” Doyoung says, rubbing at his temples hard enough that his skin must burn red, “tell me he’ll call me if I stare at my phone long enough.”

“He’ll call you if you stare at your phone long enough,” Jaehyun echoes, doing an even worse job at being supportive than Taeyong. Doyoung sighs, loudly. “Look, uh—maybe he forgot your number? You know how shitty men can be.”

“I’m like, almost certain he has my number saved in his phone,” Doyoung pushes his phone away dejectedly, “and if he doesn’t, I think that’s even worse.”

“Okay, but maybe he deleted it accidentally,” Jaehyun says before rustling the bag as he picks up another handful of tortilla chips. “That shit happens.”

“I’ve never deleted someone’s number accidentally.”

“I haven’t either,” Jaehyun admits and Doyoung groans, resting his head down on the table. “But— _but_ , I have deleted everything on my phone before, so—or, well, Taeyong has, actually. Deleted everything on my phone, I mean, so it’s not like it doesn’t happen at all.”

“He’s done that on purpose, though,” Doyoung says, his voice muffled just slightly, “and you recovered it anyway. Moot point.”

“Maybe he didn’t have it backed up somewhere else?” Jaehyun says, stuffing another handful of chips into his mouth. Doyoung tries not to cringe at the loud sound of crunching as Jaehyun chews and continues speaking at the same time, “maybe it’s because he’s got your number saved under a different name or something?”

“You’re terrible at thinking of excuses.”

“Maybe he’s—”

“—did he at least talk about me?” Doyoung asks, lifting his head to be able to properly judge Jaehyun’s reaction. “Did he mention going on a date with Kim Doyoung? That’s me, by the way.”

“I know your name,” Jaehyun scowls. “We’ve literally been friends for years, asshole.”

“Well, did he?”

“Did he what?”

“Did he talk about me?” Doyoung asks, “or about the date he went on, in general? Did he tell you anything about it? You’re the one who set us up, right, so he should at least… thank you? Or tell you how it went.”

“He didn’t,” Jaehyun says, before he scrunches up his whole face and frowns at Doyoung, “and I didn’t set the two of you up. What are you on about?”

“You introduced me to him,” Doyoung says, “which led to us going on a date together. Which basically means you indirectly set us up.”

“I did not,” Jaehyun says, waving his hand, “and no, he didn’t talk to me about it but that’s not—that’s not indicative of anything, you know? We haven’t talked since he quit working at the café and he did that like, before the two of you even went out.”

“Right,” Doyoung says, making a mental note to never have Jaehyun set him up, ever again. Neither of them say anything for a moment, Jaehyun still loudly chewing his chips, before Doyoung’s brain restarts and he exclaims, “oh! Holy shit.”

“What?”

“I’ve got—I’ve literally got the mind of a mastermind,” Doyoung stands up so fast his chair almost falls over, “see, Seungyoun mentioned going to this, this bar after work. He’s probably there right now! Holy shit. Is going there a great idea or is it a great idea?”

“Isn’t that—hm,” Jaehyun frowns, wiping his hands on his jeans, leaving trails of chip residue on denim, “doesn’t that border on stalking? And he’s not exactly employed right now. Or I don’t think he is, at least.”

“No, no, see, you don’t understand,” Doyoung says, taking a look at what he’s wearing—an old sweatshirt and worn down jeans, nothing that’s enough to woo Seungyoun. “God, I have to change. The point is—the point is, I’ll pretend I’m there for whatever reason and accidentally run into him. He’s going to confess that he—he—he’s going to confess that he…”

“That he lost his phone and all his contacts,” Jaehyun says, before he snaps his fingers, “oh! That he got his phone stolen and that’s why he couldn’t call you.”

“Sure, sure, he’s going to confess that—that he got his phone stolen and shit, and that he’s been dying to talk to me, but sadly he couldn’t and he’s just so happy to run into me,” Doyoung says, before he clasps his hands together, grinning. “There’s no chance this won’t work, right?”

“Oh, yeah, definitely,” Jaehyun says, carelessly folding the half-empty bag of chips and throwing it aside on the counter, almost knocking down his glass of coke. “The casual run-in scheme always works flawlessly.”

“Right,” Doyoung says, nodding as he stares at Jaehyun. He narrows his eyes at him, trying to figure out if Jaehyun agreeing that it’s a good idea is a red flag, before he shakes his head. No use dwelling on that, surely. “Okay, time to go change and then I’m off. Tell Taeyong he doesn’t have to wait to watch the second Vanessa Hudgens Christmas movie with me.”

“Oh,” Jaehyun purses his lips and cocks his head to the side, “think it’s going to go that well?”

“He’s the one, I’m telling you,” Doyoung says, unable to stop the smile from pulling at his lips while Jaehyun nods at him, only serving to make his confidence skyrocket. “Okay—got to go before I miss him or something! Wish me luck.”

“Good luck,” Jaehyun says, sending him a thumbs-up.

.

Doyoung allows himself a minute to pull down the sun visor and practice possible lines in the mirror after he parks his car near the bar. In retrospect, he could have dragged Jaehyun down there with him, made it seem like he was hanging out with a friend, but it’s not like he can’t work with this. He’s done improv for years, after all, so he should be a pro at this.

He _is_ a pro at this.

Just as he’s about to get out of the car, having taken several deep breaths, he feels his phone buzz in his pocket and almost drops it twice in an effort to see what it is. Disappointment settles at the bottom of his stomach when it turns out to only be a series of texts from Taeyong, which read:

_DON’T DO IT BAD IDEA BAD IDEA!!!_

_TERRIBLE IDEA_

_WEE WOO WEE WOO WEE WOO_

_DOYOUNG DO NOT GO INSIDE THE BAR_

_I WON’T HELP YOU TRASH HIS HOUSE IF  
YOU GO INSIDE THE BAR_

_!!!!!!!!!_

_wait maybe we should just tp his car to go  
back to the good old college days y/y ?_

_WHATEVER WE’LL FIGURE THIS OUT LATER  
JUST DON’T DO IT KING_

Doyoung rolls his eyes, sets his phone on silent and slips it into his pants pocket, completely disregarding Taeyong’s messages. There’s _clearly_ going to be no need to trash Seungyoun’s house, obviously, and so Doyoung grins at his reflection before putting up the sun visor and stepping out of his car.

The bar is surprisingly crowded when he enters, but Doyoung pays barely any attention to that as he immediately starts looking for Seungyoun. If he’s alone, he’s probably by the bar, and if he’s with someone—a friend someone—then in one of the booths, and Doyoung just needs to figure out which place is the best for him to sit, strategically, so that they can—

“—hi,” the hostess standing near the entrance of the bar says, making Doyoung startle just so. He lets out a nervous laugh and she presses her lips into a thin line. “Are you joining us for dinner?”

“Oh, no, no, I’m meeting someone,” he tells her, smiling.

“Right,” she says. “For dinner?”

“Uh,” Doyoung stammers, trying not to falter under her deadpan stare. “I’ll just—I’ll just wait at the bar, if that’s okay.”

She nods at him and he gives her one last smile before he finds his way to the bar, stuffing his hands in his pockets. Seungyoun’s nowhere to be seen, but he’s not too discouraged by that, considering it’s still pretty early in the evening.

“Can I get you anything?”

“Hm?” Doyoung asks as he turns back to find one of the bartenders looking expectantly at him, “sorry, I, uh, missed that.”

The bartender smiles as he pours a glass of something behind the bar. “Can I get you anything?”

“It’s—it’s fine,” Doyoung waves his hand, “I’m actually meeting someone, so I might as well wait for him, you know?”

“Totally,” the bartender says, passing the drink to one of the other people sitting at the bar, “here you go,” before he turns back to Doyoung, offhandedly wiping the counter beneath the bar with a towel, “polite to wait for your date and everything.”

“It’s—uh, it’s not really a formal date or anything,” Doyoung says, fiddling with his hands in his lap. For the first time that evening, Doyoung considers the possibility that coming here to try and meet Seungyoun might have been a mistake. “I mean, I’ve only been out with this guy—uh, Seungyoun—one time, and—”

“Wait—Cho Seungyoun?”

“Uh, yeah,” Doyoung sits up, biting along the inside of his cheek, “you know him?”

“Yeah, he’s not—he’s not coming in tonight,” the bartender says. He’s evidently confused as he stops in his tracks and furrows his brows at Doyoung, who’s slowly starting to feel regret seep in through his pores. “Did he forget he was supposed to see you tonight?”

“I mean—uh,” Doyoung’s brain struggles to come up with a plausible explanation, but producing a singular thought might just be too much to ask of it right now. “Well, um—”

The bartender shakes his head. “I can just—call him, maybe, yeah?” He pulls his phone out from his pocket and the reality of the situation smashes over the top of Doyoung’s head, making him startle. “See what’s up and all that.”

“No, no, don’t call him!” Doyoung exclaims, leaning forward and almost pushing the phone out of the bartender’s hands. He catches himself at the last minute, forcing himself back in his seat and trying very hard to look sane. He doesn’t do it very well, judging by the bartender’s expression. “I was just, uh, you know, hoping to—to see him? I was—I was in the area and thought I’d come in to see if he was… here, maybe.”

The bartender nods, crossing his arms. “Right.”

“I mean—when we met the other day, he—he left his,” Doyoung pats through his pockets, trying desperately to find something that he can pretend was Seungyoun’s, “he left his, his, uh, his—his pen!” He whips the pen out of the pocket of his jacket, before setting it down gently. It glistens red under the lights of the bar and there’s something written on the side, and Doyoung does not recognize it at all. “He left his pen the other night when we met and I—I don’t know, maybe it’s important to him, you know how some people are.”

“Mhm,” the bartender hums as he picks up the pen, “right… I’ll get it to him, definitely.” He spins the pen around, finding the text written on the side. He narrows his eyes at it, tilting his head, before the corners of his lips lift in an amused smile, “ _support Jung Jaehyun at soundcloud dot com slash daddy long dick._ Huh.”

Doyoung sucks in his bottom lip, nodding slowly. Of course he had to find one of Jaehyun’s fake promotional pens, of fucking course. The bartender stares at him, expectant, still holding the pen up and Doyoung sits up, taking a deep breath.

He’s too tired to continue with this, he decides.

“Okay, I, uh, I’m Doyoung,” he says, “I went out with Seungyoun about a week ago and I just,” the bartender leans on the bar and Doyoung wishes desperately for the ground from under the stool he’s sitting on to break, to let him fall right into the middle of the Earth and disappear from this conversation. “I just thought that if I ran into him here then—okay. This is stupid, sorry, uh, I’m going to go—”

“—wait, no, come on,” the bartender reaches across the bar as if to take Doyoung’s hand before he thinks better of it. Doyoung freezes in the middle of getting up and adjusting the lapels of his jacket, in the middle of trying to gather however much dignity he has left. “Come on, hang out. I’ll buy you a drink?”

Doyoung looks back at the bartender, at the way his head is tilted to the side, the way he’s smiling at him just gently so, and thinks about Jaehyun’s and Taeyong’s reactions if he were to come back home early after putting up such a front before leaving.

“Okay,” he twists back into his seat. “One drink.”

“One drink,” the bartender agrees, grinning, “give me a second and I’ll be right back.”

.

“Look, I’m going to be honest with you: Seungyoun’s not going to call you back,” the bartender—Johnny—says, a good several hours later, once the bar has closed and Doyoung’s the only patron left. “He probably wouldn’t have called you back even if you did meet him here today.”

“You can’t know that,” Doyoung frowns.

“I can,” Johnny insists, not unkindly, even if a bit forcefully. “It’s just—it’s just how people do things. It’s been—how long has it been? Since your date with him?”

_Ten days_ , Doyoung thinks.

“Uh, more or less a week,” he says.

“See, if he wanted to, he would have called you already,” Johnny says. “If he didn’t, it’s because he’s not going to.”

“What if he wanted to, but couldn’t?” Doyoung toys with his empty glass, spinning it around in his hands. Johnny has to catch it when it almost falls off the bar and Doyoung smiles at him, hoping his apology shines through the gesture. “Maybe he lost his phone or got it stolen, or deleted all the data on it accidentally or something stupid like that. Maybe he got hit by a car or—or his grandma died or—”

“—or maybe he didn’t call because he’s just not interested in going out with you again,” Johnny says, placing Doyoung’s glass on the counter under the bar, “if he was interested, he would have called you by now, I swear.”

“Okay, okay, but, uh, my friend—Seonghwa, he didn’t get a callback for over a year before accidentally meeting his date in town,” Doyoung argues, leaning forward in his seat, “and they’re—well, they’re not together anymore but the point is they _were_ , and—”

“—your friend’s a clown,” Johnny says, leaning on the bar. Doyoung frowns, ready to protest, before Johnny adds, “also the exception.”

“The exception?” Doyoung huffs, “well—what if I’m the exception as well? What if I’m going to meet Seungyoun out on the town in like a month or whatever and it turns out we’re like—I don’t know, soulmates or some shit. Destined to be together.”

“Hate to say this, but you’re not the exception,” Johnny says, leaning even further forward, his elbows flat against the bar. Doyoung stares at him, his mouth falling open, “exceptions are rare, yeah? You’re the—well, the rule.”

“Which is?”

“If a guy doesn’t call you, he doesn’t want to call you,” Johnny says. He lifts up a hand, gesturing vaguely, “if a guy treats you like shit, he doesn’t care about you.”

“Really?”

“Yeah.”

“Always?”

“Always,” he confirms. Doyoung glances down at his hands, disappointed, and Johnny drums his fingers on the bar for a moment before he says, “look—I know what blowing someone off looks like. I do it all the time. If someone’s treating you like they don’t care, they don’t care. It’s as simple as that.”

Doyoung looks up at him, cocking his head to the side and furrowing his brows together. Johnny watches him, carefully, almost worried.

“Huh,” Doyoung says.

“Hm?”

“This—this explains a lot,” Doyoung says, shaking his head before he meets Johnny’s eyes. “Thank you.”

.

“We’re the rule,” Doyoung parrots the next day to Taeyong, as early as he’ll listen, which just so happens to be when they’re sitting together for breakfast in the kitchen. “We’re the rule, not the exception.”

“Would one hundred percent agree, if only I knew what the fuck you were talking about,” Taeyong says, mindlessly pushing around the scrambled eggs on his plate. Jaehyun’s still out—he went on a date yesterday, apparently—so they’re the only ones in the apartment. “Care to elaborate?”

“The rule is—the rule is, okay,” Doyoung says, “remember how I told you I dated uh, Kun, third year of college? And he kept blowing me off or being late to our dates? Or—or Seungwoo, who wouldn’t make it official even though we dated for almost a year? Or—”

“—I get the point, men suck,” Taeyong replies, sighing as he pushes his plate away and sits back, crossing his arms. “That’s the grand rule you were told about?”

“The rule is, if men treat you like shit, it’s because they don’t care about you,” Doyoung says, as if it’s some grand revelation, as if they both hadn’t learned this months—if not years—ago. “If they’re into you, they’re not going to treat you like shit, you know? Because they actually care. If they do treat you like shit, it’s because they absolutely do not care.”

“Right,” Taeyong nods, “totally.”

“No, come on, I’m serious about this,” Doyoung insists, nearly shaking in his seat as he continues, “I mean—all the stories we hear, about like, uh, Seonghwa, or whoever else—they’re the exception. When men treat the exception like shit or blow them off, it’s because—I don’t know, they’ve got some reason for it. They didn’t call back because they lost their phone or got into a car crash or their aunt died or some other valid reason.”

“What are you getting at, here?” Taeyong says, “that happens to everyone, I’m sure, not just… not just the,” he makes quotation marks with his fingers, “the exception men, or whatever.”

“What I’m saying is, repeating those stories to each other about how a friend of a friend was treated like shit and then still got with the guy doesn’t mean anything,” Doyoung slashes through the air with his hand and Taeyong just has enough sense to pick up his cup of coffee before it gets knocked down, “it doesn’t help at all. It’s regressive, if anything. It made me stay with Kun for like, six months, all because Taeil found a guy who kept blowing him off and it turned out he just genuinely didn’t have the time to meet and I thought Kun would turn out to be the same.”

“But he didn’t.”

“But he didn’t,” Doyoung repeats, leaning forward in his seat. He must look insane but he can’t find it in himself to care, not at all, not even as Taeyong scoots a bit away from him. “Because—because Taeil was the exception. When men don’t call us back, it’s because they never want to see us again.”

“Real shit?”

“Real shit,” Doyoung says, “like—Seungyoun doesn’t care about me. Sure, he was nice during the date and hugged me and remembered what drink I like, but that’s not rocket science. The truth is he didn’t call me back for more than a week. The truth is he forgot about me the moment we parted ways.”

“I’m sure that didn’t happen—”

“—no, it did,” Doyoung insists, his hands practically vibrating as he throws them up, “he did, but it’s fine, because now I understand why he didn’t call me.”

Taeyong sighs. “Did you at least get an estimate as to when a guy will call you if he likes you?”

“Uh—no,” Doyoung says, frowning, “less than a week, I guess. You’re not hearing me though! The point is—the point is, there’s no use waiting for Seungyoun to call me and I know I have to move on now, so if you’ve got any suggestions…?”

“You want me to set you up?”

“Yes,” Doyoung says and Taeyong laughs, disbelief written plainly across his features, “clearly, the problem now was Jaehyun setting me up, because he has one working synapse and shit. If you set me up, there’s a way better chance for me to find someone who likes me. It’s simple maths, really.”

“There _is_ this one guy,” Taeyong says after a moment of silence, rubbing a hand over his face, “if you want, I could pull some strings and ask him to go get drinks with us?”

“That’d be perfect,” Doyoung grins.

.

Taeyong’s friend—“he’s a friend of a friend of a friend of a friend,” Taeyong explained to Doyoung earlier, when they were getting ready to head to the bar, “if he’s shit, don’t blame this on me,”—is Lee Hangyul, an aspiring defense attorney that’s just a bit younger than Doyoung. He’s nice, rather easy on the eyes, and occasionally funny, and though Doyoung has a slightly harder time picturing their future together than he had with Seungyoun, it still doesn’t take too much effort.

Their apartment’s going to have floor to ceiling windows and a rather minimalistic decor, with some large and overly expensive houseplants that Jaehyun’s going to have to come by to take care of, probably. With Hangyul, Doyoung’s set to live out the rest of his life in a net of comfort, playing the part of a trophy husband who does nothing but household chores—or maybe not even those, if they have enough money; maybe he’ll just gossip with all the other trophy husbands in their neighborhood and play with their dog all day.

Taeyong doesn’t seem too into the idea, though.

“He’s so sleazy,” he leans in to tell Doyoung as soon as Hangyul leaves to take a piss, “we should leave, like, right now, and make him foot the bill.”

“Nooo, don’t say that, he’s nice,” Doyoung says, “or, I mean, you know. He’s funny.”

“He told you ten lawyer themed puns,” Taeyong rests his head on his hand as he stares up at Doyoung, looking exhausted out of his mind, “all of which you did your obviously fake laugh at. Don’t even try to tell me you seriously thought he was funny. And—and, look, there’s no chance he didn’t look up _best jokes for lawyers to tell on dates_ or some shit. _Wikihow to act on a date if you’re a lawyer_. If you’re a defense attorney, sorry. God, he’s probably like one of those shitty defense attorneys that defend actual murderers and shit.”

“You can’t know that,” Doyoung frowns. “Maybe he’s one of those like, you know, good defense attorneys. That helps the innocent.”

“Him?” Taeyong says, as he raises his eyebrows in disbelief. “I seriously doubt it.”

“Again, you can’t know that,” Doyoung says, “and—okay, even if, he’s still a lawyer. Even if he works for the corrupt or whatever, he’s still gonna make money. If I’m to get a rich husband, a lawyer is a good start.”

“Your morals suck ass,” Taeyong says, as if his own don’t as well. “Besides, aren’t you supposed to be looking for true love or some shit?”

“Yeah, but true love with a rich lawyer would be nice, you have to admit,” Doyoung sighs dreamily as he leans back in his seat. “I mean, can you imagine? I’d do nothing but just vibe. Oh, and take part in those shitty artistic plays that won’t get me anywhere career wise. That’d be so sexy.”

“That is the dream life,” Taeyong admits, still hunched over their table, “not with Hangyul here, though, I swear. He just wants to fuck.”

“Yeah?” Doyoung asks, “and how do you know that?”

“You believed the bartender without any explanation,” Taeyong says, mock offended. “You’re not going to do the same to me? I’ve been your best friend for years, now. Surely that’s more credibility than the bartender has.”

“ _Johnny_ had an explanation,” Doyoung says, “you’re as much of an incel at this whole dating shit as me, genius.”

Taeyong picks up his drink and takes a sip. “It’s the same thing Jaehyun does on his dates. Why do you think he goes on so many?”

“Oh,” Doyoung furrows his brows as he processes the information. “Wait, same thing Jaehyun does? What do you mean?”

“I mean I went on a date with him once—”

“—like, with someone else?” Doyoung asks, “like you’re accompanying me right now? That’s what you mean, yeah?”

“No, like on a date date,” Taeyong shakes his head, “that’s beside the point, though. The point is he acted exactly the same—overly nice, kinda sleazy, that sort of thing. Well, not really sleazy, but almost? Oh—he did have a list of jokes about, well, about his major, since we were still in college then. I think they were to use as ice breakers, but you get what I’m saying. Plus—we were with a couple of friends and he kept being like, almost rude to everyone else but me, like Hangyul Evil Defense Attorney is doing right now. His friends did suck, though, so, like. Up for debate.”

“Hangyul Evil Defense—wait, don’t call him that,” Doyoung kicks at Taeyong under the table. He misses and instead settles on swatting at Taeyong’s forearm. “And he’s not being rude to you, come on.”

“Well, he definitely isn’t being nice to me,” Taeyong says, “haven’t you noticed? Whenever he looks at me his like—his forced smile disappears. I’m his irl cock block, of course he hates me.”

“But wait, hold on, uh, going back to the Jaehyun thing,” Doyoung says. He narrows his eyes at Taeyong, leaning towards him, “you went out with Jaehyun? _Jaehyun_? The same Jaehyun that you make fun of literally everyone for going out with?”

“Stop being weird about this, it was a long time ago,” Taeyong says, kicking at Doyoung’s shin. He manages to actually hit it. “Also, your dearest prince charming is coming, so do your best to score a call, king.”

Doyoung shakes his head, though he does straighten in his seat as Hangyul approaches their table. He stops by it, not bothering to sit down. “This was great,” he says, focused only on Doyoung and only glancing at Taeyong once, “I do have to get back to the office, though.”

“You’re going back to work after happy hour?” Doyoung asks, pursing his lips and tilting his head just so to the side in question.

“Back to work after drinking?” Taeyong tsks. Doyoung sends him a look, considering subtly elbowing him before he decides he’s not going to ruin his chances with a rich lawyer by reprimanding Taeyong.

“Duty calls,” Hangyul sighs, folding his suit jacket over his forearm. “Anyway—I’d love to call you sometime later? Do you have a card?”

“Um—I can just give you my number?” Doyoung says, accepting the unlocked phone Hangyul passes to him and inputting his number. He’s tempted to set a cute contact name to at least make Hangyul smile, but the only thing he can think of is daddy long dick.

Fuck Jaehyun.

“I’ll give you my card, too,” Hangyul says, sliding a small card across the table as soon as Doyoung returns his phone. “Nice to meet you, uh—Taeyong.”

“Nice to meet you,” Taeyong echoes back, his voice a complete monotone.

“Excited to hear from you, Doyoung,” Hangyul says, winking and—well, Doyoung is starting to understand what Taeyong was getting at earlier. He starts to leave the bar, leaving Taeyong and Doyoung in their seats, before everything in Doyoung’s brain clicks into place.

“Oh, hold on,” he says, getting up. Taeyong sends him a questioning look but he ignores it, focused solely on catching up to Hangyul. “So—what’s going to happen?”

“Hm?” Hangyul asks, pulling his brows together as he stops in his steps.

“Are you going to call me or are you going to hear from me?” Doyoung says. When Hangyul still looks confused, he adds, “you said both and—well, it’s either one or the other, you know? So…which one is it going to be?”

Hangyul smiles at him, “look—we’ll talk, yeah? We’ll get in touch, no worries,” and promptly starts to walk away, but Doyoung’s not planning on letting him do that before he gets a concrete answer.

“Ah, see, there it is,” he says, making Hangyul stop once more. “I need one or the other.”

“Uh—”

“—okay, let’s just say you’ll call me,” Doyoung shrugs, throwing his hands up before clasping them together, “you call me and we skip all this—confusing shit, yeah? That work?”

“Uh,” Hangyul stammers, before he shakes his head. “Goodbye, Doyoung.”

Doyoung grins, “goodbye,” and heads back to Taeyong, sliding into his seat.

“What was that?” Taeyong asks, “you’re going to chase after—after him? Of all people? Even the stalking nightmare of last week was so much better than this.”

“I didn’t chase after him,” Doyoung says, pulling Hangyul’s card out of his pocket and promptly ripping it apart into four pieces. “I simply made sure to clarify some things.”

“Wait—why’re you doing that?” Taeyong asks. He frowns, narrowing his eyes as he watches Doyoung, “you never listen to me. What’s this about?”

“If he wants to call me, he will,” Doyoung says, before he reaches for his drink,“I’m sure of that, at least.”

“Mhm,” Taeyong hums, “seems like a much healthier approach to this than the one you had last week.”

Doyoung can’t help but agree.

He can’t help but agree until it’s the next day, late in the afternoon, and he’s back to staring at his phone, waiting for a call that’ll seemingly never come. He’d chickened out of discarding the pieces of Hangyul’s card, instead shoving them into his jacket pocket when Taeyong wasn’t looking and taping them back together when he got home. Now he’s trying to figure out whether calling Hangyul would be a good idea.

They’d made a decision, haven’t they? Hangyul was to call Doyoung—though it’s not like he agreed to that; he did just bid him goodbye instead, so maybe...

Doyoung sighs, reaching for his phone and dialing a number he hopes is right. It’s only a couple rings before someone picks up on the other end.

“Uh,” he says, after being greeted with the name of the bar, “sorry, is Johnny there?”

“ _Hold on._ ”

It’s a moment or two before Doyoung hears a rather confused, “ _hello, this is Johnny?_ ”

“Hey, it’s Doyoung?”

“ _Doyoung?_ ”

“Kim Doyoung?” When Johnny doesn’t reply, Doyoung adds, “uh, we talked the other day? I had the uh, the pen with—with, you know, the,” he sighs, “the link spelled out on it?”

“ _Soundcloud dot com slash daddy long dick,_ ” Johnny recites, huffing out laughter, “ _yeah, I remember. It’s nice to hear from you. How’s it going?_ ”

“Okay, so,” Doyoung pauses when he hears shuffling and people talking in the background, mildly remembering that this is Johnny’s place of work. “Oh, God, sorry to like, bother you while you’re working. If you don’t have time, I can, uh, ask someone else for help—”

“ _—no, no, it’s fine,_ ” Johnny says. He must cover his phone because the next part comes out muffled, “ _here’s your drink,_ ” before his voice is clear again, “ _what do you need help with?_ ”

“Okay, so, uh, you helped me a lot the other night,” Doyoung says, drumming his fingers on the table, “and I might have a question or two to ask you?”

“ _Look, now I have to be harsh—Seungyoun’s never going to call you back,_ ” Johnny says and though his words are almost mean, his tone is gentle and that eases the message somewhat. “ _You’re not—what was your friend’s name?_ ”

“Which one’s?”

“ _The one you told me about? Who met the guy after a year of him not calling or whatever?_ ”

“Seonghwa.”

“ _This isn’t a Seonghwa situation,_ ” Johnny says, “ _if he hasn’t called you by now, you really should consider moving on_.”

“I know, I know,” Doyoung says, dragging out the words, “you helped me come to terms with that, mostly, the other day. Anyway, this isn’t about Seungyoun—it’s about Hangyul.”

“ _Hangyul_.”

“Right, so—we met for drinks yesterday,” Doyoung starts, closing his eyes and leaning back in his seat as he recounts the date. “I thought he was super nice, even if Taeyong thought he was kind of sleazy—”

“ _—your first date with him was a double date?_ ” Johnny asks. The noise in the background on his side quiets down significantly, preceded by the sound of a door closing. “ _That’s—well, probably why he’s not calling you_.”

“It wasn’t a double date,” Doyoung says, “if you let me finish talking about it, I would have gotten to that.”

Johnny laughs on the other side, directly into the microphone. “ _My bad,_ ” he says, “ _by all means, do go on._ ”

“Thank you,” Doyoung grins. He pauses for a second, gathering his thoughts, before he continues, “anyway, he’s like—not really Taeyong’s friend, but they kind of knew each other beforehand, so the three of us went out for drinks, right?”

“ _Right. Nothing too crazy about that._ ”

“Exactly,” Doyoung says, “he was very nice—Taeyong did not agree with me on this one and insisted that Hangyul just wanted to get laid, but—uh, sorry, getting off track. Uh, what I wanted to ask about is—he said he’s going to call me and everything, but he also gave me his card? And we just kind of ended it on promising to get in touch, so—”

“ _—he’s not interested,_ ” Johnny says.

“You don’t even know if he called.”

“ _I don’t think you’d be calling me if he had,_ ” Johnny says and even Doyoung has to admit he’s got a point. “ _Did he, though?_ ”

“No,” Doyoung says, sinking in his seat, “he didn’t, but I think the date—the hangout, whatever you want to call it—went pretty well, so I think there’s a big chance he’s going to. Call me, I mean.”

“ _Doyoung,_ ” Johnny starts, his voice crackling over the phone, “ _I hate to break it to you, but he’s not going to call. He’s not interested._ ”

“You can’t know that.”

“ _Look, if a guy gives you his phone number instead of taking yours, he’s not interested,_ ” Johnny says, after a brief pause. “ _That’s the rule._ ”

“Well, he also took my number—”

“ _—and, also, if a guy wants to see you, believe me, he will see you,_ ” Johnny says. Doyoung slumps even more in his seat, trying very hard not to lose his mind. “ _I once called like, fifty Oh Sehuns before I found the right one. Spent the whole evening just doing that, you know? Like a day or so after we first met._ ”

Doyoung tilts his head. “Aw,” he says, “that’s oddly sweet. Anything come out of it?”

“ _Nah,_ ” Johnny says, “ _he was a fucking bore._ ”

“Not exactly daddy long dick, huh?”

Brief silence rings in Doyoung’s ears and maybe he shouldn’t have—but Johnny laughs, surprise clear in his tone when he speaks. “ _It was mostly because he was already in a relationship, but yeah, I guess you could say that,_ ” he replies. “ _Anyway, don’t call your guy, yeah? Hangyul or whoever. He doesn’t like you._ ”

“Thanks,” Doyoung says, unable to hide that the words hurt, no matter how much he might have expected them. “Always knew I could count on you.”

“ _He’s just not worth it, I promise,_ ” Johnny says. He’s quiet for a moment and Doyoung takes the opportunity to throw the taped-together card in the trash, sighing when he settles down in his seat again. “ _I’ve got to get back to manning the bar, but good luck, yeah? On your next date._ ”

“Okay, bye,” Doyoung says, about to hang up, before he adds, “and uh, thanks. For everything.”

“ _Don’t mention it,_ ” Johnny says and Doyoung imagines him smiling as he hangs up.

.

Ideally, Doyoung would spend the next week moping around and forcing Taeyong to watch shitty romcoms with him till he feels better. They still have a number of gay films with happy endings left to see on their list and Doyoung could really use a rewatch of _Pretty Woman_ just about now, if he’s to be completely honest.

“I can’t,” Taeyong says, when Doyoung brings this up to him. He looks apologetic more than anything, his brows furrowed as he wrings his fingers together, and Doyoung gently touches his hand across the table. “I’m really sorry, shit, I wish I could, but I’ve the portfolio to finish since the deadline really do be coming up, though.”

A few days before the date with Hangyul, Taeyong decided to apply for an assistant position that’s freed up in the fashion department of the magazine he’s currently working for. He’s told Doyoung before how difficult it would be, considering all his prior work experience is a brief call center gig he had for two months and his current assistant position in the marketing department, not to mention his absolute lack of actually studying fashion outside of his own free time. He’s told Doyoung before how difficult it would be, how time-draining, too, how stressful, and Doyoung feels terrible for forgetting about it.

For making Taeyong get drinks with him and Hangyul, too, when he could have been working on the portfolio all this time.

“Oh shit, yeah,” Doyoung says, waving his hand, “yeah, no, don’t worry about. It’s fine. And if, uh, if you need any help with the portfolio, I’m ready to try and help you as much as I can, you know?”

“You’re a theatre kid,” Taeyong picks up his coffee with a pointed look at Doyoung. They’re on their lunch break—well, Taeyong is; Doyoung’s just hanging out with him before he goes grocery shopping with Jaehyun. Either way, they’ve decided to invade the café Jaehyun works at, half to annoy him, but mostly because he gives them free coffee. “I think you’d do more harm than good, really.”

“I don’t think you can back up that claim,” Doyoung says; at Taeyong’s inquiring raise of brows, he adds, “I don’t dress myself badly. Would go as far as to say that I dress well, even.”

“Didn’t deny the theatre kid part, though.”

“I have an acting degree,” Doyoung says, before he lightly kicks Taeyong under their table and leans forward, “I really don’t dress that badly though, come on. Admit it.”

“It is at least better than how Jaehyun dresses, I’ll give you that.”

“You can say that to practically anyone.”

“Say what to practically anyone?” Jaehyun asks, sliding into the seat next to Taeyong at the booth they’re sitting at. He’s still in his work apron, a lopsided name tag barely hanging onto it, with a very large stain just underneath it.

“That they dress better than you,” Taeyong says as he reaches to fix the name tag.

“Not that it’s much of an achievement,” Doyoung adds.

“These are my work clothes,” Jaehyun says, sounding a mix of both exasperated and fond. He sits back in his seat, throws his hand over the back of the booth behind Taeyong’s shoulders, and Doyoung briefly remembers what he found out a few days earlier, about how the two of them went out. “I’m not going to look mad sexy in my work clothes, obviously. I’m not here to smash.”

“Smash,” Taeyong repeats, looking a bit dumbfounded. “Out of all the words you could have used, you went with smash.”

“Just say fuck, king,” Doyoung snickers behind his cup of coffee.

“Will do, next time,” Jaehyun says. He looks behind him briefly, to the counter, frowning lightly. Doyoung follows his gaze, making out the queue that’s formed practically to the door and the lone barista left behind the counter—Haseul, who looks like she’s moments away from losing her mind.

“You sure you don’t have to be working right now?” Doyoung asks, after giving Haseul a brief wave and seeing her force a smile back. “Haseul doesn’t really look like she’s having the time of her life.”

“Uh, I mean, my shift ended, but,” Jaehyun presses his lips into a thin line, taking a deep breath. “Yeah, maybe. Until Mark comes in, at least.”

“He’s running late again?” Taeyong frowns. “Isn’t he gonna get in trouble for that, sooner or later?”

“Not really,” Doyoung says, “not as long as Jaehyun and Haseul keep covering for him.”

“I’m not gonna snitch on a high schooler,” Jaehyun sighs, before he slips his phone out of his pocket, checks it, and adds, “he’s only supposed to be like, ten minutes late, anyway. It’s not that much work.”

“Ten minutes late at your equivalent of a rush hour,” Taeyong argues. “And it’s not like this is his first time, either.”

“He’s just barely eighteen,” Jaehyun says, his hand slipping off the back of the booth to squeeze Taeyong’s shoulder slightly as he gets up and dusts off his apron. “I’ll go help Haseul and I’ll come back as soon as Mark comes in and changes into uniform and everything, yeah?”

Taeyong hums and Doyoung nods in reply, and Jaehyun leaves the both of them to join Haseul behind the counter. The smallest bit of stress seems to slip off her shoulder as she welcomes him back and they get to work, side by side.

“I swear, that kid’s always late,” Taeyong says as he wraps his hands around his coffee cup. “Would it hurt him to be on time at least once?”

“He’s only supposed to be ten minutes late. That’s not too much.”

“I guess not,” Taeyong traces the side of his cup lightly with his finger, not sounding entirely convinced, “it’s just—I don’t know. It sucks to see Jaehyun work more than he has to without him at least getting rewarded for it.”

“Mark gave him a box of chocolates as thanks just last week.”

“They were stale and way past the expiration date,” Taeyong sighs, before he waves his hands, “whatever, though. If Jaehyun doesn’t mind getting clowned like this by some kid, then so be it.”

“He’s not getting clowned,” Doyoung says. Taeyong doesn’t reply, instead just looking at him doubtfully, and Doyoung takes a deep breath. “Okay, yeah, maybe he’s getting a little bit clowned. But—uh, moving on, you reminded me about something I’ve been meaning to ask you, actually.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah,” Doyoung echoes. He tilts his head, narrowing his eyes at Taeyong and says, “why didn’t you tell me about you and Jaehyun?”

“About—oh,” Taeyong sits back, biting along the inside of his cheek as his skin blooms just slightly pink and Doyoung frowns. “You’re making this out to be some big, serious thing. It was back in sophomore year and it only lasted like, a month. Two, tops.”

“Wait,” Doyoung says, leaning forward over the table. Taeyong moves his coffee cup to the side, just in case. “It was more than one date?”

Taeyong stares at him for a moment. “Yeah,” he says, finally, “but as I said, it wasn’t serious. I mean, I don’t know, not serious enough to warrant telling anyone. My close friends at the time didn’t know about it, and I’m pretty sure whoever Jaehyun hung out with didn’t know, either.”

“Didn’t you say it was a double date?”

“I did,” Taeyong says, waving his hand, “it was. We just—I don’t know, never told them that we went out again after that. Is this good enough for you or do you want a play-by-play? A bullet point recollection of how it all went down?”

Doyoung huffs, rolling his eyes, though he can’t hide his amusement. “No,” he tells Taeyong, relaxing in his seat, “so that’s all?”

“Hm?”

“I mean, you went out a few times and just… stayed friends? Decided to move in together?” Doyoung says. “Oh! Is he the reason you don’t really date? Are there some unresolved feelings there? Hm?”

“What?” Taeyong says, even though his voice wavers just slightly. He clears his throat, shakes his head, “you know, you’re really not the Granada Sherlock you think you are. If anything, you’re the BBC sponsored clown.”

“Always keeping me humble,” Doyoung muses, “but you didn’t answer my question?”

“I did…?”

“The first one,” Doyoung says and at Taeyong’s blank look, adds, “why’d you decide to move in together if you’re practically exes? I mean, not even practically. You are.”

“We’re not practically exes,” Taeyong stares down at the table, tracing some patterns onto it with his finger, “I mean, sure, we went out a few times but it was never anything official. When we ended it, it was mutual, and we both thought we were better of as friends which, in all fairness, we are.”

“Okay,” Doyoung says, dragging the word out. He sits back, tapping his fingers on the table and glancing out the window. “I can’t believe I missed all this intergroup drama, damn. If only we had a class together during your sophomore year.”

Taeyong rolls his eyes, though he’s grinning. “There wasn’t any real drama, king. That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you.”

“Right,” Doyoung says. Taeyong opens his mouth to argue but instead his phone rings, loudly, and he scrunches up his nose as soon as he sees the caller ID. “Your boss?”

“Yeah,” Taeyong sighs as he picks up his phone. “I probably should get going. See you back home?”

“See you back home,” Doyoung replies and Taeyong slides out of the booth, answering his phone and shrugging his coat on with one hand. He gives Doyoung a sheepish smile and Jaehyun a wave before rushing out, nodding his head at whatever his boss is telling him. Doyoung watches him try to hail a cab outside, stress obvious in his movements, and hopes that Taeyong manages to score the fashion department assistant job.

It takes almost forty minutes for Jaehyun to finally leave the counter and a few more for him to change in the break room. When he comes out, finally, it’s with his apron now stuffed into his bag and a worn hoodie with old ink stains on the front in its place. He smiles sheepishly at Doyoung, who decides not to clown him too hard for everything.

“Sorry for the hold up,” Jaehyun says once they’re outside, having exchanged brief goodbyes with both Haseul and Mark, careful to not hold up the queue. “I really didn’t think Mark would be so late.”

“It’s not your fault,” Doyoung says, because Mark was twenty minutes later than he’d said he’d be. “You did give me just enough time to play a few levels with someone on _Fireboy and Watergirl: Online_ , so. And, you know, I’m sure Haseul appreciated your help.”

“Yeah, the coffee I spilled all over the floor was mad helpful.”

“You said it, not me,” Doyoung grins, lightly elbowing Jaehyun. “At least you cleaned it up, though, yeah?”

“Yeah,” Jaehyun says, “anyway, speaking of—Haseul wanted to know if you’ve got any plans for the beginning of December?”

“Queen wants to take me out, aw, that’s so sweet,” Doyoung presses a hand to his chest, sighing dreamily, and Jaehyun retaliates by knocking his shoulder into Doyoung’s, almost making him stumble off the sidewalk into the street. “You’re an asshole,” Doyoung says, though he laughs as he shoves Jaehyun, “tell her I’m gay, though.”

“She doesn’t want to take you out, clown,” Jaehyun shoves his hands into his pockets, kicking at the rocks scattered over the sidewalk, “she just needs someone to dogsit for her, only for—”

“—dogsit,” Doyoung gasps, “um, fuck yeah, I’d love to dogsit for her. Did she say when exactly?”

“If you just let me finish, you would’ve known already,” Jaehyun says and Doyoung pulls on Jaehyun’s sleeve, opening his eyes wide and jutting out his bottom lip until he rolls his eyes and continues speaking. “She just needs someone to dogsit for her,” he repeats, “only for like, uh, I think it was two or three days? Sometime in two weeks.”

“Tell her I’d be mad into it, then.”

“Just message her,” Jaehyun says, waving a hand, “she mentioned something about her brother dropping by, too, but truth be told, I lost half of that—”

“—wait,” Doyoung stops in his tracks, slipping his phone out of his pocket and pulling up his calendar. “This would be in two weeks?”

“Yeah,” Jaehyun says, furrowing his brows. “Is that—do you have anything then?”

“Rehearsals start,” he waves a hand, “for my play. Only a few hours, though, so maybe I could still do it…”

“I’m telling you, message her,” Jaehyun says as Doyoung starts walking again, now pensive. “And, as I said already, her brother might be dropping by or whatever, so I guess he could help?”

“Okay,” Doyoung frowns, trying to imagine his time schedule, before he gives up and decides he’ll just have to check it when they get home. “Okay, whatever. I’ll just message her about it and mention how terrible you were as a messenger.”

“Thanks.”

“You’re welcome, babe,” Doyoung grins at him.

Jaehyun rolls his eyes. “Yeah, yeah,” he says, “anyway—you mentioned your play?”

“As I have twenty times this week,” Doyoung narrows his eyes, “you remember the title at least, yeah?”

“Oh, yeah, of course,” Jaehyun says, as if Doyoung doesn’t catch the panic that writes itself all over his features, “it’s, uh, um—it’s called, uh, I mean, I know this, of course I know, haha, yeah. How could I forget?”

“Now you’re just digging a bigger hole for yourself, king.”

“Is it _London Rising_?”

“ _Weldon Rising_ ,” Doyoung corrects him. “Not bad, though. Thought you wouldn’t remember it at all.”

“Happy to see you believe in me,” Jaehyun says, “and it’s by…?”

“Phyllis Nagy.”

Not even an ounce of recognition crosses Jaehyun’s eyes. No surprise there. “What’s it about, again? If you don’t mind.”

“To be fair, I don’t think I’ve mentioned that one a lot,” Doyoung says, squaring his shoulders and looking up at the sky in thought, trying to recall the main plot point. The cast is still in the middle of memorizing their lines, getting familiar with the script, which means he’s looked at it once and never again. “Something, something, New York melting, uh—there’s a murder, too.”

Jaehyun hums. “Hope you’re not the murdered party?”

“No spoilers,” Doyoung teases him, before he says, “but no. And the play isn’t really about the murder? The central, uh, theme of it, if I’m not getting this wrong, is about like… a community coming together or something? Not quite sure. Guess you’ll just have to wait and watch it to really understand it.”

“Is this just to get me to come to the premiere?” Jaehyun teases, knocking his shoulder into Doyoung’s, who laughs into the open air. “You do know I was planning to go see it anyway, right?”

“Can never be sure,” Doyoung says. He tugs his jacket closer around himself—it’s definitely not as cold as it could be, considering it’s mid-November, but it’s not exactly warm, either. “It should be really good, though. Or like, I don’t know, weird enough to be nice.”

“Is it going to be like your last play?” Jaehyun asks, his brows pulling together as a smile plays on his lips, “uh, what was it? _Quad_?”

“By Samuel Beckett, yeah,” Doyoung says.

“That was terrifying,” Jaehyun says and, at the look Doyoung gives him, rushes to correct himself, “I mean, you did a great job, but holy shit. Hated that so much. Pissed my pants three times, probably. Pretty sure Taeyong had nightmares afterwards.”

“We all know it was you who had the nightmares, king,” Doyoung says. “It’s not going to be like that, though. I mean—it’s like, artistic or whatever, sure, but less eerie and probably much more comprehensible.”

“I sure fucking hope so,” Jaehyun shakes his head, “if it’s anything like _Quad_ , then just know I’m not going to see your next play. That’s a promise.”

“It’s not going to be like that,” Doyoung says, rolling his eyes. “Anyway—where’s the Carrefour we’re going to? You said it was like, right outside the café. I’m almost certain that’s a verbatim quote.”

“I did not say it was right outside the café,” Jaehyun argues, huffing. “It’s just a few blocks away. It’s really not that far—look, you can already see the sign.”

Doyoung looks to where Jaehyun is pointing—only to be unable to see anything of importance.

“I think you’ve started hallucinating,” he tells Jaehyun. “You might be a pretty nice guy, a pretty swell guy, but you got some sugar and now you’re going cuckoo. Doesn’t bode well for you, I think.”

“If anyone got sugar, it’s you,” Jaehyun points out, before he clears his throat. “What do we need to buy? Do we have any sort of list or some shit?”

“If you had thought to write one down, then maybe we would have one,” Doyoung says, pulling up his phone, “Taeyong and I did list some basic groceries we definitely don’t have—I think I should have it written down here.”

Jaehyun nods. “Okay, we’ll just work with that,” he peers over Doyoung’s shoulder at the notes he opened on his phone, “there’s three things here. Eggs, milk, and butter. Don’t we still have like, three unopened sticks of butter in our fridge?”

“Uh,” Doyoung chews on his bottom lip, trying very hard to visualize their fridge. He’s not doing a great job of it. “Maybe?”

“We’ll skip that then,” Jaehyun says, “and, also, I was thinking of making an apple pie for Taeyong? So keep an eye out for the ingredients for that, if you don’t mind.”

“Do you have any specific list of those?” Doyoung asks, glancing up at Jaehyun, who pretends to think before he shakes his head. “Oh—wait a minute, is this since he’s working on the portfolio and shit?”

“Yeah,” Jaehyun says, looking down at the crosswalk as they continue walking, kicking the few rocks scattered over their path. “Thought it could cheer him up or whatever.”

“I’ll help you, then,” Doyoung grins, “just so you don’t burn down the kitchen and give him any more problems. And so the pie actually works out and doesn’t look—or taste—like your shitty pancakes.”

“They’re not that bad! Come on, man.”

“They are,” Doyoung says as Jaehyun lightly guides him to the side, his hand on his back; they’ve arrived at the Carrefour, Doyoung discovers when he looks up to take survey of their surroundings, and he turns to grin at Jaehyun, “don’t worry, though—this pie’s going to fuck so hard, Taeyong’ll go cuckoo after the first bite.”

.

_Taeyong will definitely not go cuckoo after the first bite_ , Doyoung thinks the next day, when he and Jaehyun are both stuck in their small kitchen, trying to make an apple pie crust. Needless to say, they’re not too great at it.

“Baking with you is the worst thing I’ve ever experienced,” Doyoung says, as if baking (and failing miserably at it) hasn’t become their thing a year or two ago. “I’m never doing this shit again.”

“Nobody forced you to help me,” Jaehyun doesn’t sound as exhausted of this as Doyoung is—a surprise, considering he’s doing most of the work, currently kneading the dough. “Nobody even asked you to help. You were the one that forced yourself into doing this.”

“That’s only because without my help, you would have burned the house down—”

“—I’m not that bad at cooking,” Jaehyun protests.

“Baking,” Doyoung corrects, “see, if you were a world-renowned chef like me, you’d know the difference.”

Jaehyun scoffs. “If you’re such a genius, why is this dough coming out so bad?”

“It’s fine?” Doyoung says, his voice faltering when Jaehyun lifts it up and it effectively starts crumbling in his hands. “As long as it’s edible, right? Taeyong can’t expect us to make something that’s actually good.”

“He’s not expecting us to make anything,” Jaehyun sighs, setting the dough down and resting his hands on the table. “That’s the whole point of this.”

Doyoung bites along the inside of his cheek. They’re doing this, theoretically, to cheer Taeyong up and distract him a bit from all the stress he’s been under these past few days, but it doesn’t look like their pie crust is going to do either of those. If anything, it’s just going to make him more stressed.

“Maybe we should just go buy the pre-made dough? That one’s guaranteed to be good.”

“That’s maybe the only good idea you’ve had so far.”

The walk to the corner store nearest their apartment proves fruitless; not only do they not find pre-made pie dough, but there’s also none of the ridiculously overpriced coffee flavored liquor that Taeyong likes, which they’ve decided to get for him as an apology for the pie. This leads them to take the bus a bit further into the city to the nearest actual grocery store, in hopes of finding some dough—if there’s still none there, they’ve decided to just call it a day and get pizza.

Luckily (or unluckily, Doyoung’ll think later, when their pie doesn’t work out and they get pizza anyway), there’s a bunch of pre-made doughs available.

“Which one should we get?” Jaehyun asks, as if Doyoung hadn’t said that same thing five minutes before. “We could get the french one—it’s like, you know, the multi-layered one, isn’t it?” He motions with his hands and Doyoung just narrows his eyes at him, shaking his head. “It could go hard. Maybe.”

“It’s for croissants,” Doyoung says, crouching down. “Can’t we just get the regular pie one? That should be fine.”

“Isn’t it marketed as crumbly?” Jaehyun frowns, scrunching up his nose in distaste.

“Yeah,” Doyoung looks up at him, “I mean—it’s for a pie crust, king. Of course it’s gonna be crumbly. Not—not _crumbly_ , per se, but like, you know,” he knocks lightly on the bottom of the refrigerators, “hard.”

“But those suck ass,” Jaehyun says. He stuffs his hands in his pockets as he leans closer to the items on display, narrowing his eyes at them. “Maybe we should fuck around and get something different from just—you know, a regular one. It could be better.”

“It could also be worse,” Doyoung says, picking up two of the doughs closest to him. He holds them up against each other, trying to figure out which one would be better, before discovering they’re the same type.

“What about pizza dough?”

“I think you’re insane,” Doyoung says, using one of the crusts to whack Jaehyun’s shin, which sadly only makes him laugh. “Go see if they have, uh, you know—the fucking liquor? I’ll try to see if some hag posted an online review of these, maybe, yeah?”

“Sure, yeah, whatever,” Jaehyun pats him on the shoulder before he leaves the aisle and Doyoung occupies himself with doing a quick search on his phone. He picks up the crusts one by one and checks to see if they have anything of importance written on the back until he comes down to two options: a deep dish one and a regular one from the same middle of the road brand, though he can’t figure out for the life of him which one Taeyong would prefer.

Out of the three of them, Doyoung is, admittedly, the one most into cooking, a wide range of recipes memorized in his head, but Taeyong’s the one into baking. He’s the one who stress bakes every once in a while, leaving them with a mountain of cookies that taste good more often than not, the one who makes banana bread and each of their birthday cakes. While Jaehyun does try his best to cook, his best simply involves not burning his pancakes and the three meals he’s managed to learn how to make, not to mention that he steers clear of baking a good majority of the time.

It’s—well, it’s not perfect, but it works for them.

It’s not necessarily working for them now, though, when they’re the ones trying to bake something for Taeyong. Doyoung sighs, turning over the pie crusts and trying to imagine the pros and cons of using either of them, when he hears Jaehyun enter the aisle.

“Okay, so,” he says without looking up from the crusts as he stands up, twisting on his feet to face Jaehyun, “we’ve got a deep dish pie crust and a regular one. Which one sounds sexier?” He glances up to judge Jaehyun’s reaction, only to—“wait. You’re not Jaehyun.”

“I’m not Jaehyun,” Johnny says from the end of the aisle, sounding amused even as his brows pull together. “Wait—is it, uh, what was it? Jung Jaehyun? From the soundcloud—”

“—no,” Doyoung says. Johnny stares at him and he only manages to hold his gaze for a while before he says, “yes.”

Johnny smiles as he walks closer to Doyoung. “It’s nice to see you, even if you did think I was daddy long dick.”

“You’re the worst person I know,” Doyoung says, biting back a grin when Johnny laughs. “Nice to see you, too, though. Outside of the bar for a change.”

“We’ve only seen each other in the bar _once._ ”

“When we talked I think you were in the bar…?”

“Maybe,” Johnny says. He adjusts the strings of the hoodie he’s wearing, almost subconsciously, before gently peering at the pie crusts Doyoung’s holding. “What do you need pie crusts for?”

“Think about it, just for a moment,” Doyoung says, “what could I need a pie crust for? There’s so many possibilities, after all.”

Johnny hums. “Exactly what I thought,” he agrees, before motioning between him and Doyoung, “it’s like we operate on the same wavelengths or some shit.”

“Oh, yeah, totally,” Doyoung definitely doesn’t preen at the way Johnny smiles at him. He shakes his head, “if it wasn’t obvious, we’re trying to bake a pie.”

“We?”

“Jaehyun and I,” Doyoung explains, turning behind him only to remember Jaehyun’s still looking for the liquor, “for—well, for the third roommate.”

“Taeyong, right?” Johnny says and when Doyoung tilts his head at him in question, he adds, “I remember you mentioned him when we talked at the bar.” He waves his hand dismissively, “anyway—what kind of pie, if you don’t mind?”

“Apple pie,” he says, “Taeyong’s top three pie, at the very least.”

“Well, he’s got taste, then.” Johnny motions with his chin at the pie crusts Doyoung’s holding, “now you’re just choosing what pie crust to go with?”

“Yeah,” he holds up the two pie crusts he’s picked, practically thrusting them into Johnny’s face, “I’ve narrowed it down to these two options. Pick for me?”

“Making me do all the hard work,” Johnny tsks, leaning a bit further away from the crusts to be able to read their packaging. “I’d go with the regular one,” he says, “the deep dish—I mean, it could be nice, but the bottom’s going to get all soggy and shit, isn’t it? And a good pie crust is like… a solid one? Or something, I don’t know. Can’t remember the last time I ate pie.”

“Going to trust you on this one, though,” Doyoung says, setting the deep dish crust back in its place and wrapping both his hands around the regular one, pulling it close to his chest. “If it tastes disgusting, that’s on you.”

“I sincerely hope it doesn’t,” Johnny says, “remember to add sugar and cinnamon or whatever to the apples so they’re not too bitter. Or get the—are the granny smith ones good for pies or some other type?”

“What?”

“Well, one of the apple types is best for pies,” Johnny waves a hand when Doyoung just furrows his brows in response, confused, “can’t remember if it’s the grammy smith ones or—no, the grammy smith ones suck, don’t they? I think so.”

“Can’t help you in that department, king,” Doyoung says, “haven’t eaten an apple since I was in sixth grade, probably.”

“Eat an orange or some shit so you don’t get scurvy,” Johnny turns back to the display, eyeing the doughs stacked up there. “From experience, it’s not too great.”

“You had scurvy?”

“Thought it was a good idea to go on a carnivore diet in uni,” Johnny says. When Doyoung gives him a rather bewildered look, he adds, “it’s a long story. Another time, maybe?”

“Right,” Doyoung narrows his eyes at Johnny before he shakes his head. “Moving on, uh—what’re you here for, anyway?”

“The same thing as you,” Johnny says, moving down the aisle, and Doyoung follows him wordlessly, “getting some cookie dough for one of my bros who’s just been dumped.”

“Pie dough isn’t exactly cookie dough,” Doyoung tells him.

“You get my point,” Johnny says, “speaking of—you been on any hot dates recently? Maybe I could—aha!” He picks up two rolls of pre-made chocolate chip cookie dough, before turning back to Doyoung, “maybe I could help you figure out if this is another Seungyoun?”

Doyoung smiles. “Don’t say that,” he says, “but no. I mean—we talked just a few days ago, about my last date.”

“And?” Johnny asks, looking at Doyoung confused, “what about it?”

“Why—why would I go on a date so quickly after that one?”

“Why wouldn’t you?”

Doyoung opens his mouth, closes it, finding himself at a loss for a plausible reason. “I was waiting for a call,” he says, “from, uh, the guy I told you about. I couldn’t have just—gone on another date with someone else. I mean—why would I?”

“Because it’s better than waiting on a call that will never come?” Johnny says, not unkindly, though there is a rough edge to his words. He stares at Doyoung for a moment before he waves his hand, “we’ve been over this, no? There’s no point wasting your time on guys that won’t call, yeah? And going on first dates with others while waiting for a call is, well, it’s the best example of this.”

“I—okay,” Doyoung presses his lips into a thin line, “okay, fine, I do kind of get your point.”

“See? Where would you be without my dating expertise,” Johnny muses, grinning.

“Lost, probably,” Doyoung plays along, if only to see Johnny’s grin stretch wider across his face. “Luckily, you’re here to give me help. My knight in shining armor, so to speak, on a white steed.”

“Don’t have a horse.”

“You’re supposed to _yes, and_ this,” Doyoung says, mock exasperated, “haven’t you ever been to improv?”

Johnny huffs at that, smiling under his breath. “Improv?”

Doyoung opens his mouth, ready to make him laugh some more, before his eyes glance over Johnny’s shoulder and catch Jaehyun entering the aisle, bottle in hand. “Oh—look, you’re just in time to meet Jaehyun.”

“ _The_ Jung Jaehyun?” Johnny turns on his heel and takes a step back to stand next to Doyoung, looking impossibly amused. “Fucking amped up, man.”

Doyoung elbows him, rolling his eyes when Johnny laughs.

“There you are,” he tells Jaehyun as soon as he’s within hearing distance, “did you get the liquor?”

“Yeah,” Jaehyun holds it up; his grip on it is flimsy and he looks just about to drop it as he gestures proudly at it with his free hand. He looks at Doyoung—and only then notices Johnny, apparently, because his eyes flit between the two of them as if he’s trying to fit together the pieces of two different puzzles. “I… don’t think we’ve met?”

“We haven’t,” Johnny grins, holding out a hand. “I’m Johnny.”

“Jaehyun,” he replies, taking Johnny’s hand and shaking it. He sends Doyoung a questioning glance before his eyebrows jump up and his eyes widen. “You’re the—the bartender? Right?”

“The bartender,” Johnny echoes, laughter just barely hidden behind his words. “That would be me, yeah. Doyoung talk about me that much?”

“Embarrassingly so, yeah—”

“—okay, okay, enough,” Doyoung says, gesturing between Johnny and Jaehyun, before he straightens in his place and crosses his arms, “for the record, I don’t talk about you that much. Just about the thing you’ve told me about—the rule and all.”

“Excuses, excuses,” Johnny looks like he’s enjoying this way too much; his eyes shine as if he’s going to be amused by this for weeks and his smile stretches in such an infuriating way that Doyoung wants to knock it off his face, but Doyoung’s admittedly not as annoyed about it as he should be. “At least try to come up with something original next time, maybe.”

“You’re infuriating,” Doyoung tells him, “infuriating. Knock that ego down a few pegs, maybe, yeah?”

“Not that third wheeling like this isn’t everything I’ve aspired to be, but it’d be nice to get going, maybe?” Jaehyun says, lifting up his phone, “Taeyong just texted that he’s on his way home so we have, uh, like an hour before he gets there to at least get started on the pie.”

“Oh, shit, right,” Doyoung’s brows pull together apologetically as he turns to Johnny and says, “uh—sorry, but we really have to get going?”

“It’s no problem,” Johnny smiles, “it was nice meeting you, Jaehyun.”

“You too,” Jaehyun says, giving an awkward nod, and Doyoung swears on his life that he will never introduce anyone to him ever again.

“See you around, Doyoung.”

“See you—oh,” Doyoung stops in his tracks; Johnny’s fingers have landed on his wrist, light and gentle, only there for a moment before they slip off. “What—”

“Do you want to maybe exchange phone numbers?”

“That was a poor pick-up line,” Doyoung says, mostly because it’s the first thing he can think of, and Johnny huffs. “Do better.”

“It kinda was, yeah,” Jaehyun confirms, resting his elbow on Doyoung’s shoulder for just a moment before Doyoung knocks him off. “Come on, aren’t you supposed to be an expert at this? At least give us something good. At least try. Make an effort.”

“Uh,” Johnny says, rubbing at the back of his neck, “I don’t—what do you want me to say? I don’t use pick-up lines. A pick-up line isn’t going to make anyone interested in me, much less convince them that I’m worth talking to.”

“Sure, but you must have better lines that get you someone’s number,” Jaehyun says.

Johnny sighs. “I lost your number,” he says, finally, looking at Doyoung, “can you give me—wait, that’s not how it goes, is it? Hold on.” He looks up at the ceiling, reciting something under his breath, before he tries once again. “I lost my number. Can I have yours?”

“You went with _that_?”

“It is a bit embarrassing,” Doyoung admits, just barely holding back his laughter, though he holds out his hand for Johnny’s phone anyway. “I’ll spare you, though. Take some pity on you.”

“That just sounds bad, man,” Johnny says. He hands Doyoung the phone, watching as he inputs his number. “That sounds like I had to beg you for it or something. Thank god I’m not actually trying to date you.”

“Date?” Doyoung says, cocking his head to the side, “I thought you were very, uh, what’s the word?”

“Noncommittal?”

“Yeah, sure, noncommittal. Thanks, Jae.”

“You’re not focusing on the more important part,” Johnny says and Doyoung hands him his phone back. Johnny stares at the screen, a smile breaking on his face; this time, Doyoung didn’t shy from setting a nickname as his contact name. “Thanks, though. I’ll text you, yeah?”

“Yeah,” Doyoung nods, “I’ll be waiting.”

“And if not I can probably expect you at the bar,” Johnny teases; Doyoung rolls his eyes though he can’t help but reciprocate Johnny’s grin. He’s just about to bite something back when Jaehyun hooks his elbow around his, clearly demanding Doyoung’s attention.

“We really have to get going, you know,” he says, looking more amused than anything else. “Before Taeyong gets home and sees the mess we left?”

“Right, right,” Doyoung lifts his hands in a small wave, “till next time, Johnny.”

“Till next time,” Johnny parrots back and Jaehyun drags Doyoung out of the aisle.

_._

“This is the worst pie I’ve ever had,” Taeyong says, later, when they serve him the pie. The dough is undercooked, very clearly, and the apples are still hard, but what matters is that it was the first thing Taeyong saw when he walked through the door to their apartment, and his face immediately brightened. “Did you cook this? Like, at all?”

“For ten minutes,” Jaehyun says.

“Eight,” Doyoung corrects him, “or, like, seven and a half? At most.”

“…okay,” Taeyong sets his plate down, pushing it away from on the coffee table, making it almost fall off the edge. “This was very sweet,” he says, “but please put that pie back in the oven for like at least twenty more minutes. More, probably.”

“As you wish,” Jaehyun says, getting up and going to do as instructed. Doyoung slides down from his seat on their couch’s armrest to sit next to Taeyong, flicking his cheek.

“Sorry that sucked,” he says, chewing on his cheek. “We tried.”

“Nooo,” Taeyong drags the word out, reaching for Doyoung’s hand and holding it between both of his own, “it wasn’t that bad.” He pauses for a moment before he backtracks, “okay, no, it kinda was. I’m sure it’ll be better when it bakes fully, though. Plus it was really nice, what you did.”

“All Jaehyun’s idea,” Doyoung says, “and—remember, if there’s any way we could help you with preparing your portfolio and getting the job, then do tell us, yeah? And we’ll try your best.”

“If your best is like this pie, I feel like it’s better if I don’t get your help,” Taeyong teases, knocking his shoulder into Doyoung’s and laughing. “Thank you, though. I’ll remember it.”

.

The next date Doyoung has is a couple of weeks later. It’s arranged by Sooyoung, his friend from university who just so happens to be playing alongside him in their production of _Weldon Rising,_ a play he’s slowly starting to despise. It takes him bothering her about it for a few days before she finally caves in, rolling her eyes as she scribbles down her friend’s phone number.

“I’ll give it to you,” she says as she finishes writing and rips the sticky note off the pad, holding it up, “if, and only if, you don’t lose your mind in the case that he doesn’t call you back. No stalking him, okay?”

“I’d never stalk someone,” Doyoung says and Sooyoung stares at him, eyebrows raised expectantly. Maybe she’d be more willing to believe him if he hadn’t told her about the whole Seungyoun incident. “I’m not going to stalk him, promise. You can rest easy.”

“Fine,” Sooyoung passes him the note and Doyoung immediately slides out his phone to save it in his contacts. “His name is Yuta and he’s working as a veterinarian and shit? I think? I don’t know him very well, though, so if he sucks, it’s definitely not on me.”

“Of course,” Doyoung nods, “you’ve made my expectations skyrocket just now, queen.”

“As if they weren’t high as shit already.”

“You got me there,” Doyoung says, before he pulls his bottom lip between his teeth, “can I get a, uh, a picture? It’s good to know what I’m getting into, no?”

“You say that as if you aren’t going to obsess over him, anyway,” Sooyoung says, hitting her hand against his upper arm. Doyoung remembers the few days after his date with Hangyul and yeah, maybe she’s got a point.

“Still,” he says, because he’s nothing if not perseverant. “Spare photo?”

“Ask him for one,” she tells him, “I’m done playing messenger for today.”

Yuta, as it turns out, is—well, he’s good-looking, even if a bit too serious at times, with his jokes a bit too dry for Doyoung to catch. He’s not trying to make it big as a stand-up comedian, though, so Doyoung supposes it doesn’t really matter, especially considering the date goes rather well and they end up making out on Yuta’s couch.

So, yeah, he’s not really in the place to complain about it.

“This is nice,” he murmurs, pulling away for a moment, staring at Yuta’s half-lidded eyes. His right hand is resting on Doyoung’s cheek, sliding down to his shoulder, and Doyoung thinks he could get used to this.

“Mhm,” Yuta hums in response.

“I can’t wait to kiss you again,” Doyoung mutters, pressing another kiss to Yuta’s mouth.

It takes a moment for Yuta to register his words, it seems, because when he does, he pulls away and says, “we’re kissing right now, though…?”

“Yeah, but next time it’s going to be even better,” Doyoung’s fingers bunch on the fabric of Yuta’s sweater, “more intimate and everything.”

“Oh,” Yuta says, letting Doyoung kiss him again before he adds, “well, uh, I’m leaving town tomorrow so I’ll be out of touch for a bit, but we don’t have to worry about that right now.”

Doyoung misses that almost completely, his brain taking a moment to decipher the words. When it does, though, he pulls away and Yuta looks at him in question.

“Uh,” he says, trying to look for a way to exit this only for a minute or two. “I need to pee?”

Yuta presses his lips into a thin line before he gives Doyoung a tight smile, “second door on the left,” he says, and Doyoung wastes no time in practically running to the bathroom and pulling out his phone.

“Come on, come on, pick up,” he mutters as it rings, pacing in the bathroom. He takes a moment to check his reflection in the mirror, adjusting his shirt and running a hand through his hair in a poor attempt to fix it. “Come on, come on—”

“ _—yeah?_ ” Johnny says on the other side of the call.

“Hi, uh, sorry to bother you,” Doyoung says, Johnny’s small “ _you’re not_ ,” flying completely over his head, “but I’ve got one question? That’s kind of, uh, urgent?”

“ _Okay, uh, hold on a moment,_ ” Johnny says. “ _Give me a minute, babe, sorry. What’s going on?_ ”

“Wait—you’re with someone?” Doyoung asks, “fuck, um, I can call… Taeyong or maybe Jaehyun, though that’s bound to do me more harm than anything else—”

“ _—no, no, it’s fine._ ”

“Sorry for interrupting your—god, I hope it’s not a date?” Doyoung says, taking a seat on the edge of the bathtub because his pacing is starting to get out of hand. “God, this is—you know what, I’ll just call someone else.”

“ _It really is fine,_ ” Johnny says, laughter on the edge of his words. “ _It’s just the first one, so like, don’t worry about it, yeah? It’s fine. What’s your problem?_ ”

“Only if you’re sure you have the time—”

“ _—if anything, you’re making this more a problem by not getting to the point,_ ” Johnny says, though he doesn’t sound mad. If anything, his voice has a teasing lilt to it and Doyoung smiles in spite of his nerves. “ _Come on, hit me with the problem._ ”

“So, I’m going out with this guy, right,” Doyoung starts, rubbing the top of his thigh with his free hand, “we had a really nice date and we’re back at his apartment, making out—nothing too, uh, hot or whatever, and he tells me that he’s leaving tomorrow and is going to be unreachable for a bit.”

“ _Leave._ ”

“Okay, vibe, but what if he’s actually going to be out of town?”

“ _Where? Where can he go that he’s going to be out of touch?_ ” Johnny says and Doyoung has to admit that’s true. “ _It’s got to be an excuse. He just doesn’t want to see you after this, probably.”_ Then, almost as an afterthought, _“sorry. You really should leave, though._ ”

“I’m just supposed to leave every guy who doesn’t like me?”

“ _Yeah,_ ” Johnny exclaims, as if it’s obvious, laughter marking his words. “ _You’re not going to force him to like you and if he’s blowing you off, you really are just wasting your time. There’s no sense in you staying there._ ”

“And when I do leave and stop getting involved with guys who don’t like me, that’s when you think I’ll find love?” Doyoung scoffs, kicking at the bathroom tiles. “I don’t think it works like that.”

Johnny is silent for a moment before he says, “ _I might actually know someone who’ll probably like you_?”

“Yeah?” Doyoung asks, pushing himself up and going back to pacing around the bathroom again, feeling excitement grow at the bottom of his chest.

“ _Yeah,_ ” Johnny repeats, “ _his name is, uh, Noh Youngho. He’s like—not exactly a close friend, but I can maybe arrange for us to meet for drinks, yeah?_ ”

“That’d be nice,” Doyoung says, his heart flipping at the idea of finding someone who’s mutually into him. “Thank you.”

“ _No problem,_ ” Johnny says, “ _always happy to help._ ”

“Well, I might have one more issue for you, then,” Doyoung says. Johnny hums on the other side, prompting him to continue, “I’m kind of in the bathroom right now? Of my date?”

Johnny huffs, his laughter coming through the call. “ _You’re going to have to leave at some point, aren’t you?_ ”

“Like out the window?” Doyoung asks, stepping closer to it and peeking out of it. “It’s only a few floors out so it should be fine, but—”

“ _—not out the window, definitely not out the window,_ ” Johnny says, “ _like, out the door. The way you came in, maybe? But take your time, honestly. Do whatever for a bit and let him worry about it._ ”

“Huh,” Doyoung says, “thanks.”

“ _Don’t mention it,_ ” Johnny replies, “ _good luck._ ”

.

To what should be little surprise, Yuta doesn’t call; he doesn’t answer Doyoung’s texts, either, nor his calls, which Doyoung has successfully reduced to only two a day. Doyoung knows he should’ve given up, should’ve taken Johnny’s advice, but the date with Yuta _was_ nice, even after the phone call with Johnny and the subsequent thirty minutes Doyoung spent in the bathroom going through Yuta’s cabinets. Yuta was nice, kind, funny, even, and Doyoung might still be a little hung up on the possibility of him. 

There is the radio silence, however. At first, it’s explainable—despite what Johnny had said on the matter, Yuta did mention that he’d be out of town and, consequently, out of reach, for a bit. Surely that’s why he’s not answering.

What’s the more pressing matter, Doyoung reasons, is the fact that his messages stop going through.

He figures this out while wasting time at the bar Taeyong’s dragged him to, together with Jaehyun and two of his now former coworkers, Joohyun and Seulgi, in celebration of him getting the fashion department job. They’re technically busy playing eight-ball, but they’re an uneven group anyway, so Doyoung’s taken the opportunity for a break and sat down at their booth, confused as he scrolled through his messages to Yuta, trying to find the last _delivered_ tick.

“Got you a drink,” Jaehyun says, sliding into the seat opposite Doyoung and placing a very green cocktail in front of him, nearly spilling half of it in the process. “You okay?”

“What’s this?”

“An apple martini.”

Doyoung sits up, setting his phone aside to pull the drink closer to himself and peer suspiciously at it. “An apple martini?”

“Yes,” Jaehyun kicks out his legs beneath the table, just managing to kick Doyoung’s ankles, definitely on purpose. “The drink all gay men are obsessed with. You’re welcome for being introduced to culture.”

“Thanks.”

“So,” Jaehyun leans over the table, his elbow just barely missing the screwdriver Doyoung ordered earlier and had been nursing up till now, “do you want to tell me what’s on your mind? Or do you want me to just keep bringing you drinks?”

“Nothing’s going on,” Doyoung says and Jaehyun’s stare doesn’t even budge. He sighs. “Shouldn’t you be playing eight-ball now?”

“Got exiled for being too good at it, so no, not really,” Jaehyun shrugs. “If you want to vent or talk it out, I’m at your service.”

“I don’t have anything to vent about, I swear,” Doyoung says, gently kicking Jaehyun under the table. “Really.”

“Then why are you sulking here, alone?”

“I’m not,” Doyoung shakes his head, “I’m not sulking.”

“You are,” Jaehyun insists. “You’re moping, if you prefer that term.”

“I’m doing neither of those,” Doyoung says, kicking him again, this time harder, “I hope you know I cannot stand you.”

“But something _is_ up, isn’t it?”

Doyoung taps his fingers on the table before he takes a deep breath. “Kind of,” he admits, finally, and a grin stretches across Jaehyun’s face as if he’s never heard better news. “You’re not supposed to be excited about this, you asshole.”

“I’m not excited,” Jaehyun says, straightening in his seat and sobering up, though he’s very obviously trying to bite back his smile. “Okay, maybe I am, but just a bit. Now, come on, hit me.”

He sighs, just so Jaehyun gets the hint that he hates every second of this. “None of my messages to Yuta have been delivering within the past day.”

“What do you mean?”

”It’s like—okay, come here,” and Jaehyun rolls his eyes though he gets up and sits down next to Doyoung, looking over his shoulder at his phone as he scrolls through all his messages with Yuta. “None of these have been delivering. Oh—look, there’s the last little delivered tick. From three days ago, holy shit.”

A strained noise escapes from Jaehyun before he clears his throat, smiling sheepishly when Doyoung glances at him. “And all your other messages have been delivering?”

“Well, yeah,” he says, “I mean, we texted, earlier.”

“On Messenger,” Jaehyun points out. He gently reaches to set Doyoung phone on the table, fingers catching on Doyoung’s, and says, “hyung, I think you’ve been blocked.”

“What? No, that can’t be. Stop fucking with me.”

“I think it’s what happened,” he says and at least he sounds apologetic about it. “How many messages exactly did you send him, over the past few days?”

Doyoung sucks in his cheeks. “I—might see your point.”

“Cheer up, though,” Jaehyun drags his arm around Doyoung’s shoulders, patting them half-heartedly, “we’re at a sexy pool bar. This is the perfect place to get you a rebound.”

“I’m not letting you play wingman,” Doyoung says before Jaehyun even has the chance to suggest it, pointedly looking away when Jaehyun juts out his bottom lip in a pout in an attempt to change his mind. “Yeah, that’s a definite no. Go back to flirting with the hot bartender.”

That doesn’t do much to fend off Jaehyun; if anything, his grip on Doyoung’s shoulders strengthens as he rolls his eyes, though he does look in the direction of the bar anyway—and his smile widens almost immediately as he does so.

“You should go talk to yours,” he says and Doyoung follows his line of sight to find Johnny standing at the bar. He looks different, hair carefully arranged instead of pushed back rather thoughtlessly, clothes more fitted than the time before, and Doyoung’s unable to take his eyes off of him as he talks with someone. There’s something almost mesmerizing about him, with the way he leans his elbow on the bar, nodding as he listens to whatever the person he’s with is saying.

It’s only when Johnny laughs that panic seems to set in Doyoung’s brain, effectively waking him up.

“He cannot see me,” he forces out, sinking his seat, pushing Jaehyun forward so he does a better job of covering him from Johnny’s view. “He cannot see me. Whatever happens, he cannot see me. He _cannot_ come here and talk to me.”

“I—why not?” Jaehyun frowns, turning back to Doyoung. “Aren’t you two friends?”

“We’re like—well,” Doyoung stammers as he moves the drinks on the table, too, splattering some of the apple martini against the front of his shirt in his rush to do so. “We’re friends, sure, but we’re like—you know.”

“I don’t,” Jaehyun says. For good measure, Doyoung moves the napkin dispenser to cover his view of the top of Johnny’s head. “You’re friends. What’s the problem with him coming over and saying hi? Wouldn’t that be expected, even?”

“In other circumstances, maybe,” Doyoung says, “now, I’m moping over a fucking apple martini and—”

“—aha! So you _are_ moping,” Jaehyun exclaims.

“Yes, we’ve—we’ve been over this, Jae, keep up,” Doyoung says, waving his hand, trying desperately to find a good excuse for how he’s behaving off the top of his head. “The point is—the point is that Johnny helps me figure out if men are into me, right? I mean, he’s going to know what’s up immediately and I really can’t deal with this right now.”

“Deal with… what, exactly?”

“God, I don’t know,” Doyoung sighs. He rises a bit in his seat, catching sight of Johnny, and immediately his blood runs cold. “I just—it’s just embarrassing. I mean, he already told me that this would happen with Yuta but I did what I always do, destroying whatever chance I might’ve had with him in the first place. You know. The usual.”

“Hey, no, don’t say that,” Jaehyun says, fingers gentle as he finds Doyoung’s hands with his own and squeezes. “It didn’t work out because Yuta’s an asshole who just wanted to get laid, knowing he was going to blow you off afterwards anyway. This isn’t on you, you know that.”

“It’s still embarrassing if Johnny talks to me and finds out about it.” Jaehyun nods in understanding and Doyoung lets himself be calmed down as Jaehyun’s thumb skips over his knuckles, before he adds, “or, you know. If he finds out about it before I lose my mind and go a little crazy texting him about it.”

That’s not entirely true, he knows; while it would be embarrassing if Johnny came and found out about Yuta blocking him, it wouldn’t be anything Doyoung can’t move past. It wouldn’t even be the worst thing Johnny knows about him, at this rate.

It’s just—it seems different now, when Johnny’s on what’s probably a date, if Doyoung thinks about it long enough, when he’s clearly dressed up and flirting, too. Doyoung can’t quite place his finger on why, exactly, but that just seems to make the whole situation that much worse, making his veins practically curl under his skin in stress.

“So here’s what we’re going to do,” Jaehyun says, moving everything on the table back in its place, “I’m going to help you sneak out through the bathroom window and tell Taeyong that you pissed your pants or something.”

“Don’t tell Taeyong I pissed my pants,” Doyoung says, “instead you should—wait, no, I can’t leave.”

“I’m going to help you sneak out past Johnny to the bathroom and tell you when he leaves?” Jaehyun amends. Doyoung narrows his eyes at him, trying to figure out if it’s worth it. “I can try to convince Taeyong we go someplace else?”

“We did only buy out the pool table for two hours,” Doyoung says, “which are coming to an end, so. I don’t think leaving would be too crazy.”

Jaehyun grins. “That’s great, because I’m craving pizza right now,” he says, letting go of Doyoung’s hands and reaching up to pat his shoulder, “right, so, see you back here in like five minutes.”

The words settle in Doyoung’s brain as Jaehyun starts sliding out of the booth and he grasps at the hem of Jaehyun’s jacket desperately, keeping him sitting down.

“Just text him,” he whines, his grip on Jaehyun’s jacket tightening, “get him to come over here. I’m sure Joohyun and Seulgi can handle themselves for a bit.”

“You’re impossible,” Jaehyun says, though he pulls out his phone anyway, and Doyoung glances in Johnny’s direction to make sure he hasn’t seen him—well.

Johnny’s looking straight at him.

“New plan,” Doyoung presses his forehead against Jaehyun’s shoulder, praying he just hallucinated. He _has_ had a bit to drink, in all honesty, so it’s not too farfetched. “You’re going to escort me to the bathroom and help me sneak out through the window. I’ll just wait for you to be done outside?”

“Not into vibing in the bathroom?” Jaehyun asks, unaware of how the situation has turned for the worse as he continues texting Taeyong, currently scrolling through emojis to add. “Honestly, that’s fair. They’re probably mad dirty.”

“Yeah, yeah, totally,” Doyoung says. “Can you send the message later? Please? No reason, just getting some rotten vibes from this place all of a sudden.”

Jaehyun looks at him, eyes narrowed before they widen in understanding. “Oh, do you actually need to pee?”

“I need to _leave_.”

This has absolutely no effect on Jaehyun as he rolls his eyes and goes right back to scrolling past all the animal emojis before settling on a dragon. Doyoung wraps his arms tight around Jaehyun, hoping it gets the urgency of the situation across.

“Okay, come on,” Jaehyun says and, with no further warning, rises to his feet, dragging Doyoung behind him.

At this point, all hope is gone—there’s no way Johnny hasn’t seen him already—though Doyoung half-heartedly lifts his hand to cover his face, dropping it only when Jaehyun’s pushed open the doors and forced the two of them past the thresholds. Wind hits him square in the face and he lets his shoulders sag in relief before everything settles in his head.

“We’re—you didn’t take me to the bathroom,” he manages, turning to Jaehyun to glare at him accusatorially. He shoves him, frowning. “We must’ve walked right past Johnny! There’s no way he didn’t see that.”

“The bathroom has no windows,” Jaehyun gives him an almost sheepish shrug.

“You were the one to _suggest_ sneaking out the window!”

“I couldn’t suggest walking right past him, could I?” Jaehyun says, as if he hasn’t just betrayed Doyoung. “Look, it’s fine. He didn’t even notice, I swear.”

Doyoung presses his lips into a thin line. “I saw him look right at me.”

“Your eyes were closed,” Jaehyun tells him, “you didn’t see shit.”

“It was—earlier, when we were still in the booth,” Doyoung says, sighing. “This is so humiliating… well! Happy to say I will be deleting his phone number from my contacts.”

“Just tell him you didn’t want to disrupt his date and call it a day,” Jaehyun waves his hand.

It’s a good plan, Doyoung thinks, when Taeyong, Joohyun, and Seulgi finally leave the bar and all six of them make their way to whatever shifty pizza place is still open, the conversation at hand blurring together in Doyoung’s head. He’s in the process of crafting ten possible messages to use if Johnny inevitably texts to tease him about the whole thing when his phone buzzes with a new notification, and—oh, no.

“Jaehyun, there’s a problem,” Doyoung says, snaking his arm into the crook of Jaehyun’s elbow, tugging him close. Jaehyun frowns at him, moderately annoyed—probably because he’s been ripped away from whatever conversation he, Taeyong, and Seulgi were in the middle of, but there’s more important matters to attend to: namely Doyoung’s crisis. “Johnny texted me.”

“Oookay,” Jaehyun says. “And this is a problem, because?”

“He said _sorry for spooking you at the bar_ ,” Doyoung reads, trying to keep his words hushed so the rest of them don’t overhear. Though it wouldn’t be the first time Taeyong is privy to his meltdowns, Doyoung would rather not have one in front of his ex coworkers. “He added _lol_ , too. Do you think he’s being passive aggressive?”

Jaehyun peers at Doyoung’s phone, squinting in order to read the small text. “I think he’s being normal,” he says. “Is that all?”

“He’s still typing,” Doyoung says, missing the annoyance in Jaehyun’s voice. “God, this is mortifying. He probably thinks I left—oh.”

“What?”

“He thinks we were on a date,” Doyoung says. “Help?”

“Did he not recognize me?” Jaehyun asks, now giving Doyoung his undivided attention. “Aw, man. I thought what we had was special. Do you want to send him a selfie so he reflects on his choices?”

“I guess he didn’t,” Doyoung mutters. He stares down at his phone screen, watching the typing bubble that pops up only to disappear, doing so maybe five times in a row. He frowns, trying to think what would’ve given Johnny the idea—and it’s clear, really; he and his roomies are generous with physical affection, used to each other’s touch. Jaehyun had brought him a drink, had his arm wrapped around Doyoung’s shoulder, even led him out of the bar, holding onto Doyoung’s hand.

It’s not too far a conclusion to reach, Doyoung decides.

“What should I tell him?”

“Just send him a selfie,” Jaehyun says. Doyoung’s too tired to protest so he does, eventually sending Johnny a blurry selfie with him and Jaehyun throwing up peace signs at the camera. It’s only when Johnny opens the message that Doyoung realizes that though it’s how Jaehyun communicates on messenger apps, it’s _weird_ and Johnny’s opinion of him is only bound to go down.

_you didn’t spook me, don’t worry about it,_ he rushes to write, ignoring how stiff that sounds. _was going to leave anyway, haha._

“Did he reply?” Doyoung watches a typing bubble pop up, then disappear. He stares at his screen until Jaehyun elbows him. “Well?”

“Not yet,” he says. It’s only a few minutes later, when they’ve almost reached the pizza place, that Johnny responds, sending him a thumbs-up emoji and, a couple seconds later, _hope it goes well_. Doyoung shows this to Jaehyun. “Do you think he got the message?”

“I think you’re worrying too much about this,” Jaehyun tells him, though he narrows his eyes at Johnny’s response. “On second thought, yeah, he definitely didn’t get the message.”

“Should I tell him something?” Doyoung says. The thought of Johnny thinking he and Jaehyun were on a date, of all things, leaves a sour taste in his mouth. He attributes it to the idea of him dating Jaehyun being nowhere near what he wants. “Straighten things out?”

“If it matters, then sure,” Jaehyun tells him, shrugging. “He’ll figure it out in a few days, anyway, when you write to him about the next failed date.”

He doesn’t wait for Doyoung’s response, slipping his arm out of his hold to enter the pizza place, followed by Seulgi and Joohyun. Taeyong waits at the doors for Doyoung, giving him a strange look.

“Everything all right? You’ve been moping all night.”

“I’m not moping,” Doyoung says. He sends Johnny a quick _we’re just hanging out_ , adding _it’s not a date haha, would rather live through ten more seungyouns than date jaehyun_ , before closing his phone and giving Taeyong a smile. “Maybe a little, because we’ve barely talked the whole time we’ve been out.”

“Because you’ve been moping,” Taeyong tells him, though he smiles, threading his arm through Doyoung’s. “If you haven’t, we would’ve played a fire game of pool and I wouldn’t have lost.”

“You _lost_?”

“I was up against Joohyun and Jaehyun,” Taeyong mutters, “of course I lost. Just barely, though. Mostly because Seulgi knocked the eight ball into the net.”

Seulgi shouts something back in protest, despite them being in a public place, and Taeyong just laughs, dragging Doyoung into the pizza place with him.

.

Despite the hiccup that is… everything that happened the week before, Johnny still arranges the date with his friend, texting Doyoung to ask if he’s available in a few days and sending him the address. It’s at a different bar than the usual one they frequent—by which Doyoung means the one where they met each other at, once—but he learns it’s because Johnny owns that one.

“Damn,” Jaehyun says, when Doyoung shares the new information with him and Taeyong. The two of them are to be helping Doyoung prepare for his date with Youngho, but instead are just mostly annoying. “I thought he was just some weirdo bartender.”

“He’s not a weirdo,” Doyoung says, frowning as he goes through his wardrobe, trying to find something to wear. He needs something nice, if he’s to make Youngho fall in love with him. “Why’d you even think that?”

“Hate to defend Jaehyun, but he did kind of spit out the content of those like, date help books,” Taeyong says. He’s sprawled out on Doyoung’s bed, with no self-awareness, eating dry cereal. “You know the type. Dating for dummies and shit.”

“Is there a dating for dummies book?”

“It was an example,” Taeyong says, exasperated, “I don’t know whether there actually is a dating for dummies book, Jaehyun.”

“If there is, we should get Doyoung one.”

“The point is we don’t need to, since the—Johnny? That’s his name?” Taeyong glances at Doyoung for confirmation, which he reluctantly gives, “he’s Doyoung’s walking dating for dummies book.”

“Obsessed with this and shit, but can’t you idiots at least try to help?” Doyoung asks, holding two patterned sweaters to his torso. “One of these, maybe?”

“You’d look forty,” Taeyong tells him, “why do you have those? They look like shit.”

“They don’t look like shit,” Doyoung counters, looking to Jaehyun for support. Jaehyun just motions at his neck in response, frowning, and Doyoung groans as he stuffs the shirts back into his dresser. “Come on, I need to at least look nice.”

“You’ll probably look better if I don’t dress you,” Jaehyun says, “or even help you with what to wear.”

“For once, he’s self-aware,” Taeyong says, getting off the bed and setting his half-empty bowl of dry cereal on the nightstand before he walks over to Doyoung’s closet. “I’ll help you, so you don’t look completely off-putting.”

“A moment,” Doyoung says, stepping aside to watch Taeyong rummage through his armoire.

“Taeyong is good at this shit, though, man,” Jaehyun says. “Helps me look presentable like it’s a hobby.”

“It’s not too hard,” Taeyong says, “hate to say it, hate to say it, but literally everyone dresses better than you.” Jaehyun rolls his eyes, though he doesn’t try to argue. “Anyway, who’s the guy you’re meeting? Other than Johnny.”

“Youngho,” Doyoung says, “he’s like—god, I don’t know. I think Johnny mentioned it was his sister’s friend more than his, but.”

“Do we know anything else about him?”

“Uh,” Doyoung says, trying to think, “something about him being nice and shit, uh, I think he’s a librarian? Or like, works at a bookshop. One of those. I do not remember.”

“A wrench in your plans to marry rich,” Jaehyun points out.

“Just get with Johnny,” Taeyong tugs out a striped button-up shirt and practically throws it at Doyoung, “he owns the bar, so he’s got to be loaded, yeah? Or at least have money.”

“Obsessed, but Johnny’s only helping me like, get better at dating and shit so I don’t end up alone at fifty,” Doyoung holds the shirt out in front of him, checking himself out in the mirror. It’s not too bad, actually. “How is this any better?”

“It’s less fitted,” Taeyong says, falling back on Doyoung’s bed, propping himself up on his elbows. “It’ll be like, I don’t know, it’ll look nice, trust me on this. Like, roll up your sleeves, too, for the peak look. And wear like—uh, black pants? Or jeans. It’s like, a casual meeting, isn’t it? No need to pull out the suit and shit.”

“This better not cost me the love of my life,” Doyoung says, setting the shirt on his bed, and goes to search for some clean black pants in his drawers. “If it does, I’m suing you.”

“Going to use the guy who never called you back as an attorney?”

“Yes, fuck you,” Doyoung says, pulling out a pair of pants. “These good?”

“Perfect,” Taeyong grins as he raises his eyebrows at Doyoung suggestively, “good luck on your date, babe.”

“Yeah, good luck,” Jaehyun echoes, “hope this time he’s the one.”

.

Youngho doesn’t come to the date.

“It’s my fault, I swear,” Johnny tells him after sitting down next to Doyoung and apologizing for running a bit late, “I fucked up the days—thought we were meeting on a Thursday, and that’s what I told him.”

“So this time it really isn’t my fault?” Doyoung asks, a teasing lilt to his tone. He’s surprisingly not as bummed out at the prospect of Youngho not coming by as he probably ought to be. “Not the rule acting up again?”

Johnny smiles. “Not this time, surprisingly,” he says, “sorry, though.”

“It’s fine,” Doyoung says, waving a hand, “I mean, I did come here like, almost an hour early to prepare myself and mentally go over what stories I should and definitely should not tell him, but you know how it is.”

“You can tell me the stories you were going to tell him,” Johnny says. He lightly kicks Doyoung’s leg under the table. “I’ll help you figure out if you need to filter them some more.”

“Very funny,” Doyoung says, before he looks around the bar, his eyes zeroing in on two men engaged in conversation, leaning close to each other. “God, this is so unfair. I’m stuck with you while those two are falling in love and shit.”

“The two right there?” Johnny points in the direction of the bar, just barely trying to be subtle.

“Yeah.”

“Oh, they’re not,” Johnny says, immediately. “I can promise you that.”

“Yeah?” Doyoung asks, “you a psychology expert or some shit? Or I guess—body language? Is there a—a field dedicated just to that?”

“You pick up those things from working at a bar,” Johnny says, rolling his eyes, leaning in closer to Doyoung as he continues, “anyway—the tall one? See how he’s leaning in and smiling and all that shit? He’s interested, yeah, I’ll give you that, but the other one clearly isn’t.”

“There’s no way you told that just from looking at them,” Doyoung says, hitting Johnny’s elbow with his own. “You’ve got to be fucking with me.”

“No, no, pay closer attention,” Johnny says, his voice going a bit quieter, “look—as the tall one keeps talking, the other one—the brunet—he keeps looking away or just nodding disinterestedly. They’re not actually engaged in conversation or anything.”

“You don’t have to be engaged in serious conversation to be into someone.”

“I didn’t say serious conversation,” Johnny points out, “it’s just—the brunet’s barely speaking and it’s not like he’s paying attention to the tall one, even. That’s a clear sign he wants out.”

“Still, that’s not—”

“—see? He just spilled the drink,” Johnny says and Doyoung turns from where he was looking at Johnny to observe the two men, watching as the brunet leaves and the tall one is left dabbing at the spilled alcohol with a napkin. “There’s absolutely no way that was an accident.”

“Okay,” Doyoung leans back in his seat, “maybe you’re actually onto something. I thought you were bullshitting.”

“If you thought I was bullshitting, you wouldn’t have called me for help,” Johnny argues, a shit-eating grin on his face, and Doyoung just rolls his eyes. “But—anyway, look—the man who just joined the tall one—they’re going to sit here all night, really connect and shit, but nothing’s going to come out of it.”

“And you got that from what, exactly?”

“Just a guess,” Johnny says, shrugging, “the tall bitch is still going to be thinking about the brunet, so he’s going to completely miss whatever connection he might form with the second man. Insist there’s no—uh, like, fireworks or something. No spark.”

“Maybe there really will be no spark,” Doyoung argues, “maybe they really won’t click as well as you think they will.”

“There’s never any spark,” Johnny says, shaking his head. “It’s just an excuse to be an asshole to whoever you’re trying to date or sleep with or whatever. It’s just an excuse to not call or text and blame how badly the second person feels about being ignored on the spark and shit.”

“Do you really think so?” Doyoung frowns, “there’s no way that would work.”

“Oh, but it does,” Johnny insists, “remember when we first met, because you came to the bar to try and ‘accidentally’ meet Seungyoun?” When Doyoung nods, he continues, “do you even remember the date you had?”

“It was nice,” Doyoung says, frowning. “I don’t see your point.”

“But was it anything spectacular?” Johnny asks, “anything groundbreaking enough to try and stalk him when he didn’t call? Or to even stress about whether he’s going to call? Look, I know Seungyoun and I know how he acts on dates, so I’m sure it couldn’t have been anything more than average. He did the bare minimum and that’s all, probably, no?”

“I mean,” Doyoung starts, before realizing he has no way to argue. It’s a bit like Johnny said, maybe, because now when he thinks about his date with Seungyoun with a bit of distance and a clearer mind, he can’t even remember what he had been so excited about. “That doesn’t explain your point about the spark thing, though.”

“You thought you had a spark with Seungyoun, because he didn’t call you back, while in reality it was the nerves you got from waiting for his call, not even knowing whether it would come,” Johnny says, “you just thought the nerves were from having some deeper connection with Seungyoun.”

“Okay,” Doyoung says, even if he’s not entirely on board with what Johnny’s getting at, “say you’re right. What’s your solution to that, king?”

Johnny ignores Doyoung’s sarcastic tone, instead saying, “it’s—you just have to stop caring as much as you do. If they like you and call you back, they will. If they won’t, they won’t. There’s always other fish in the sea.”

“Right,” Doyoung says. There’s a point to all that, maybe, but he can’t imagine just—not worrying about getting called by his date. Can’t imagine brushing off getting rejected just like that. “And you’re sharing all these secret dating for dummies tips with me because?”

“I don’t know,” Johnny says, shrugging as he eyes Doyoung’s face. “I like you.”

“You—what?” Doyoung asks, narrowing his eyes, feeling his heart speed up way too much. “You do?”

Johnny stares at him for a moment, strangely somber. “Don’t get too crazy about me, now,” he says, his voice just barely strained, “I just mean—I like you the way I like, I don’t know, classic incels with the fedora and shit. There’s just something pathetic about them, something that makes you want to help them.”

“Happy to hear you think I’m a fedora incel,” Doyoung says, though he can’t help the laughter that slips out his mouth. “Very lovely. Hope other guys see me like that as well.”

“Hopefully not all,” Johnny teases him, lifting his glass. “To you finding someone who doesn’t think you’re an incel.”

“To me finding someone who doesn’t think I’m an incel,” Doyoung agrees, grinning as they clink their glasses together.

.

There’s relative radio silence from Johnny for the rest of the week—he doesn’t text about setting up a date with Youngho again and he also stops texting about whatever stupid shit’s happening at work, like he had the few weeks before. It’s mildly concerning, but Doyoung doesn’t pay much attention to it.

It’s not like he has any time to, considering how stressful everything’s become recently. Rehearsals for his play have started and dogsitting for Haseul has, too, and he’s quickly lost most of his footing.

“Don’t forget your script next time,” Taeyong tells him, leaning on the doorway as he passes Doyoung the script in question. “I had to pause the cinematic masterpiece that is _Cats & Dogs _for this.”

“ _We_ had to pause the cinematic masterpiece that is _Cats & Dogs _for this,” Jaehyun corrects from the living room.

“You heard him.”

“Right, well, this won’t be happening again,” Doyoung says, taking his script and smoothing his fingers over the cover. He’d left it in the apartment in his hurry to get to Haseul’s place that morning, having to catch her before she left town to get her keys. “Thank you, though. I don’t know what I would’ve done without you.”

“Probably walked in and gotten it yourself,” Taeyong says—which, well, he’s not entirely wrong. “You sure you don’t want to join us for the movie? The beagle’s just gotten adopted.”

“But the little boy still hates him?” At Taeyong’s nod, Doyoung waves his hand, “maybe another time, then. I’ve got a poodle waiting for me at Haseul’s that probably needs to piss real bad.”

“And you’d be willing to make the dog wait longer if the boy got over himself already? ‘Cause we’re ready to fast forward to that point, if that’s the case.”

Doyoung’s unable to stop his smile as he lightly hits Taeyong’s shoulder with the script, putting no real force into the hit. “You know I want to,” he says, “I wish we didn’t have the fucking anti pet policy in our apartment so I could bring Latte here.”

It doesn’t even take a second for Taeyong’s eyes to widen, for his lower lip to jut out as he presses his palm to his chest. “Aw,” he says, “the dog’s name is Latte?”

“God, yes, it’s so cute,” Doyoung says, “Latte’s really cute, it kind of took me out this morning.”

“You know, you could smuggle her in,” Taeyong muses, tone forcefully casual as he shuffles his feet, “like we talked about? A trial run for when we actually get a dog. It’d be a win-win; you’d get to stay here and finish the movie with us and I’d get to vibe with Haseul’s dog.”

“And we’d also get kicked out of our apartment,” Jaehyun yells from the living room.

“And we’d also get kicked out of our apartment,” Doyoung repeats. Taeyong rolls his eyes, the smile pulling at his lips breaking his annoyed act easily enough. “Anyway, I really do have to get going. I’ll see you tomorrow at Jaehyun’s café, though?”

“I might not have the time,” Taeyong says with a slight wince, scrunching up his nose. “Working in the fashion department is ten times more draining than working in the marketing department. Who would’ve thought.”

“You’ve got to have a lunch break, though,” Doyoung says. “If not, that’s a workplace violation, isn’t it?”

“I do have a lunch break, don’t worry,” Taeyong reaches to pat Doyoung’s chest, adjusting the lapel of his jacket gently. “I just have… twenty different things to do during it as well, that’s all. Which doesn’t really leave me any time to sit down and shit.”

“So we’ll only get time to vibe when I come back here?”

“It’s just three days,” Taeyong says, “don’t tell me you have separation anxiety.”

“Just promise me you’ll make Jaehyun run over with whatever cookies you bake,” Doyoung says, tilting his head to the side and pulling at Taeyong’s sleeve, “with a slice of your pie or whatever. Promise me that?”

“What makes you think I’ll have the time to bake?”

“Please,” Doyoung says, “you always find time to stress bake.”

Taeyong rolls his eyes, though he doesn’t even try to deny it. “I promise I’ll send Jaehyun over.”

“That’s all I need to hear,” Doyoung grins, lightly kicking at Taeyong’s feet. “I’ll see you—well, soon, hopefully.”

“You make it sound like we’re codependent.”

“We do be a little insane sometimes,” he says and Taeyong nods his head in agreement. “Have fun with your movie. And say goodbye to Jaehyun from me.”

“I can hear you,” Jaehyun yells from the couch, “goodbye, though. Have fun dogsitting for Haseul! Send us lots of photos of Latte.”

“Oh, yeah, please do,” Taeyong rests his head on the door, “I expect at least three photos per hour.”

“I’ll see what I can do about it.”

Taeyong bids him one last goodbye before he’s off, rushing to make the bus so he doesn’t have to wait twenty minutes for the next one. In a stroke of luck, he manages to catch it just before it drives off, climbing on it and feeling very out of breath.

It’s a relatively short drive to Haseul’s place, one which Doyoung could theoretically spend going through his script, trying to memorize it more for rehearsals, but instead spends going through his phone. He opens his chat with Johnny, trying not to focus on how strangely empty it feels, with no new messages since the date they were supposed to have with Youngho, but Doyoung doesn’t really have the time to dwell on it, because Jaehyun keeps sending him snapchat updates of the movie in five minute intervals, his photos mostly concentrating on Taeyong and his reactions instead of the actual dogs.

They’re just nearing the end of the movie when Doyoung makes it to Haseul’s apartment complex, climbing up a few flights of stairs to make it to her place. He drags out the spare pair of keys she’d left him, twisting them into the key hole and pushing the doors open, already calling Latte, only to—

—wait.

Why are the lights on?

He’d left them off, he’s sure of it, and nerves pulse cleanly under his skin, only slowing down when Latte bounds into his field of view. Even then, he rushes to pick her up, hugging her closer to his chest when he hears footsteps.

“I—uh, who’s here?” His mouth feels like it’s been stuffed with cotton and he can feel his knees shake under him—until Johnny appears at the end of the hallway, dressed-down in a pair of sweats. “Johnny?”

Johnny blinks at him.

“Uh, hi,” he says, stuffing his hands into his pockets as Doyoung slowly breaks out of his stupor and reaches to close the door behind him. “Are you—you _are_ here to dogsit, aren’t you?”

“No, I just broke in to vibe,” Doyoung says before he shakes his head, frowning. “I’m here to dogsit. What else could I be doing here? Now—why are you here?”

“I’m Haseul’s brother,” Johnny says after a moment, “did she not mention it?”

“She… did mention a brother,” Doyoung admits, gently setting Latte on her feet, offhandedly patting her head before letting her trot off into the living room, “and that he might drop by, now that I think about it. She didn’t mention it being you, though.”

“She didn’t mention you’d be the dogsitter, either,” Johnny says, reaching to rub the back of his neck awkwardly. “I was kind of expecting Yeojin to show up, in all honesty.”

“You know Yeojin?”

“She’s practically mine and Haseul’s little sister, of course I know her.”

“Right,” Doyoung fiddles with the strap of his bag, trying not to shuffle on his feet. “Um, well, if you’ve got Latte under control and everything, I can just… go home, I guess—”

“—no, no, it’s okay, um,” Johnny says, “I’m technically on call for work and everything, and I just thought I’d drop by to keep Latte company, in case the dogsitter didn’t come yet. But here you are, so. Just let me grab my CD and I’ll get out of your hair.”

“Your CD?” Doyoung asks, skimming right past the rest of what Johnny said. “You still use CDs?”

“ _Ratatouille_ ’s not on Netflix,” Johnny muses. Doyoung nods half-heartedly in understanding, slipping off his shoes and fully shrugging off his coat. “I’d pirate it and all, but if I’m watching it, I might as well watch it in the quality it deserves to be watched in.”

“You’re watching the rat movie?”

“The—the rat movie?” Johnny’s face twists, nose scrunching in distaste, a frown pulling the corners of his lips down. “If you’re not going to give it the respect it’s earned, you better keep its name out of your mouth.”

Doyoung hums as he twists to hang up his coat, as he almost timidly continues into the rest of the apartment, brushing past Johnny into the living room; sure enough, the TV showcases a grey rat holding up a strawberry and a piece of cheese against an otherwise dark screen.

“No, yeah, of course, my mistake and all,” he says, “I think it’s a great movie. Seriously! Don’t look at me like that.”

“How am I to believe you, when you called it the rat movie less than five minutes ago?”

“The main character is a literal _rat_. I think the assessment’s fair.”

“Not the point.”

“I guess you’re just going to have to trust me, then,” Doyoung says, batting his lashes at Johnny, who scoffs and shakes his head. “I do think it’s a classic, though. I mean, it’s almost as good as _The Twelve Dogs of Christmas,_ so, you know. I think that says a lot.”

“As good as… what, exactly?”

Doyoung gapes at him. Maybe he’s being a little overdramatic, but it’s not like they have any witnesses. “You’ve never watched _The Twelve Dogs of Christmas_?”

“I—should I have?” Johnny asks, brows pulled together. “I’ve never even heard of that movie.”

That’s not entirely surprising; it’s not like Taeyong nor Jaehyun had heard of it before Doyoung sat on the couch with them, the movie open on his laptop. Sooyoung hadn’t either, come to think of it—and maybe there’s a pattern there, somewhere.

Still, Doyoung leans on the armchair, looking at Johnny unimpressed.

“So you’re telling me you haven’t watched the greatest movie ever released?”

“I was in the middle of watching it before you came.”

“ _Ratatouille,_ while a great movie, is certainly not the best one—”

“—it’s definitely better than whatever flop movie you were suggesting, so—”

“—okay, no, that’s not fair,” Doyoung says, crossing his arms, almost petulant. “You haven’t even given _The Twelve Dogs of Christmas_ a chance! This isn’t fair. If we’re to try and come to an accurate decision regarding the best movie ever released, you at least have to watch both contenders.”

Johnny laughs. “I’ll do my best to watch your movie before we see each other again, then,” he says. “For now I’ll get out of your hair, though. Sorry for the scare and all.”

“It’s no problem,” Doyoung replies and watches, silent, as Johnny maneuvers his way around the armchairs, as he picks up the remote from the coffee table to close the movie. He’s almost done with it, reaching to open the CD tray, when Doyoung blurts out, “or, you know. We could watch it now, maybe, if you’re free?”

He almost regrets it as soon as he says it, with the way Johnny’s whole body stills, but there’s nothing wrong with the suggestion, is there? They’re friends. Friends do shit like this, Doyoung reasons. There’s nothing weird about this, even if they’ve practically gone on a date together and Johnny’s been ghosting him ever since, and—

—so maybe Doyoung has been paying more attention to the whole situation than he’d like to admit.

“Uh,” Johnny stammers. He straightens in place, twisting to face Doyoung, and without any thought, reaches to card his fingers through his hair. “Are you sure?”

“Why wouldn’t I be sure?” Doyoung says, “I’m the one who suggested it.” Johnny opens his mouth to respond, but he still looks more conflicted than necessary, so Doyoung adds, “and you know, I could use the company. For all I know, Haseul’s place could be haunted.”

“You have Latte with you, in case you forgot.”

“She’s a poodle,” Doyoung says, “love is love, but, you know.”

“She do be a pretty small dog, that’s true.”

“Look,” Doyoung starts, biting along the inside of his cheek, “if you’re busy or whatever—and you are on call for work, so I totally understand if you’d rather not stay. If you’ve no problem with it, though, and are, you know, free and shit, I wouldn’t—I’d like you to stay here and watch the movie with me. Movies, actually, since I haven’t watched _Ratatouille_ in a while and wouldn’t mind refreshing my memory. And, you know, since you’re here, you could help me figure out if a few guys on tinder are actually into me?”

Johnny looks at a loss for words as he opens his mouth and nothing comes out. He closes it, tilting his head—and momentarily his features soften, a smile pulling at his lips and eyes glistening in the light.

“I think that’d be nice,” he says, finally, and Doyoung swears he’s never won more.

.

“I still think _Ratatouille_ ’s the better movie,” Johnny says several hours later, and Doyoung decides the short movie marathon was a bad idea. “ _Twelve Dogs_ is pretty nice, though. I can see the appeal.”

“It’s more than nice,” Doyoung insists, stopping in his steps when Latte veers off the sidewalk onto the grass. They’re out walking her before they head to sleep—well. Before Doyoung heads to sleep and Johnny heads back to his own apartment. “It’s amazing, groundbreaking, game-changing, etcetera, all the things Gaga says. I’ve never seen a better movie.”

“Haven’t you?”

Doyoung about to confirm he hasn’t, before he remembers Vanessa Hudgens’s Christmas movies exist.

“I—I may have,” he says, pretending he doesn’t see the way Johnny preens at that. “You have to admit, though, it’s still a great movie.”

“It—yeah, okay,” Johnny allows, stuffing his hands into the pockets of his jacket. He’s already got all his things with him, a backpack slung over his shoulder, ready to go home. “It’s nice, I’ll give you that. Even if it’s very… even if it’s borderline bland.”

“How can you even say that,” Doyoung says, shoving Johnny’s side and making him laugh loudly into the otherwise quiet night. “Borderline bland? Do you hear yourself?”

“I just meant it’s very, uh, you know. It’s got that family movie vibe,” Johnny says. Doyoung gapes at him, half actually annoyed and half just for show. “I’d still put it pretty high up on my, uh, I guess you could say… PG movie ranking? Feel good movie ranking? Consisting of animated movies and ones like these, meant mainly for kids and shit.”

“I’ll pretend you didn’t say that as an insult.”

“I didn’t!” Johnny protests, “ _Ratatouille_ ’s on the very same ranking, I can assure you. At the very top, obviously, but I’d say there’s not that many movies between it and _Twelve Dogs_.”

“So you do have some taste,” Doyoung says, glancing at Latte, who’s occupying herself with sniffing around the numerous bushes. “What’s your full ranking, if you’d be willing to share?”

He tries to stifle a yawn after he says it, but Johnny seems to notice anyway, his features softening as he smiles.

“I think that’s a topic for another time, maybe,” he says gently.

“I’m not tired,” Doyoung counters, almost petulant. He does feel his eyelids getting heavier and heavier by the minute, but he figures that’s not important enough to warrant sharing with Johnny. “You can do the bare minimum and share your movie ranking.”

“I think that’d take far too long,” Johnny says, “you mentioned having rehearsals tomorrow, didn’t you? Wouldn’t want to tire you out before them with some film buff shit.”

“We’re talking about movies for kids,” Doyoung says. “That hardly qualifies as,” he pauses to yawn again, pointedly avoiding Johnny’s raised eyebrows after, “film buff shit.”

“That’s up for debate,” Johnny tells him. He tugs his jacket a bit tighter around himself, hiking his shoulders up—and only then does Doyoung take notice of the rather chilly wind that’s passing by his neck. “Thank you for, uh, letting me stay and shit. And watching the greatest movie ever made and _Twelve Dogs_. It was really nice.”

“You’re forgetting that we also watched _Ratatouille_ ,” Doyoung teases, if only to see Johnny huff and pretend to be annoyed. “You don’t have to thank me, though. You were the one to keep me company and shit. If anything, I should be thanking you.”

“Maybe we should just agree it was nice, then,” Johnny says. Doyoung smiles, ignoring how constrained his chest feels, blood pulsing steadily in his ears. “I’ll see you around, Doyoung.”

“See you around,” Doyoung echoes. He watches as Johnny slips his hand out of his jacket pocket to give him a half-hearted wave, before starting to walk backwards and blowing Latte a kiss when she perks up at the sound of his footsteps.

It’s not too long before he’s gone completely and Doyoung makes his way back to Haseul’s apartment, feeling the fatigue hit him ten times harder without Johnny by his side to fight it off. It’s then, though, that he remembers about another classic—and wastes no time in texting Johnny about it ( _omg_ _we should def watch_ monsters inc. _together sometime_ ) without sparing a second thought to the implications. What if this was a one-time thing? What if Johnny didn’t enjoy it as much as Doyoung did? What if this is pushing some boundary he hasn’t noticed, crossing some line that Johnny set—

— _hell yeah,_ Johnny’s response calms his nerves as it stares at Doyoung from his phone screen. _would love that, no lie_.

He can’t help the smile that breaks across his face, so wide it makes his cheeks ache—and maybe he’s a little bit fucked.

.

Though they don’t get a chance to watch _Monsters Inc._ within the week, they do stay in touch a lot more than before, with Doyoung sharing stupid anecdotes from rehearsals and just in general, and Johnny messaging him short reviews of movies he’s watched and random shit that fills his mind during the day, that tends to sound like it was taken straight off of National Geographic more than anything else. They’ve almost started compiling a list of movies to watch together, most of them lifted straight from their childhood, and have developed a habit of staying up late to chat—something Doyoung’s sure he’ll regret, once his sleeping schedule needs to be fully functional. As of right now, though, it’s no problem, considering how late rehearsals run.

All in all, they’re definitely closer now than they were before, but it doesn’t mean that Doyoung’s not surprised when Johnny calls him on Saturday, during Doyoung, Taeyong, and Jaehyun’s spontaneous movie night, which involves copious amounts of pizza and shitty movies. This time, they’re watching straight Christmas romcoms, trying not to lose their minds when the plot of each is exactly the same.

“Bro, I miss the Vanessa Hudgens ones,” Jaehyun says, from where he’s sitting on the far side of their shitty couch. He’s got an arm swung around Taeyong’s shoulders, though Taeyong doesn’t seem as bothered by it as he should be. “At least they were original.”

“Those were the stupidest movies I’ve ever watched, I swear to god,” Taeyong says. “They made no sense, absolutely _no_ sense.”

“Okay, but at least they were interesting,” Jaehyun argues and Taeyong looks at him, brows furrowed like he’s about to clown him, “not like all the hallmark ones which are practically the same.”

“He’s kinda right,” Doyoung says, looking up from his phone where he’s been playing animal crossing and eyeing the screen. “Not to mention it had Vanessa Hudgens.”

“It did have Vanessa Hudgens.”

“If you want Vanessa Hudgens so bad, let’s just watch the _High School Musical_ trilogy,” Taeyong says, sounding annoyed beyond belief.

“The point is having both Vanessa Hudgens and Christmas, all conveniently in one movie,” Jaehyun says, biting back a grin as he raises his brows at Taeyong. “I don’t think _High School Musical_ will give us that.”

“God, we can just play one of the Vanessa Hudgens movies then,” Taeyong says, though he makes no move to pick up the recently fixed remote and exit out of the movie. “Haven’t we all already watched them both like five times, though?”

“I think that’s just you, Taeyong,” Jaehyun says, with barely concealed laughter, and Taeyong elbows him in the side. “Ow, come on, man.”

“Do we want _The Knight Before Christmas_ or the other one?” Doyoung asks, reaching for the remote and exiting out of the movie they were watching. “What’s the other one called, uh, the—oh, _The Princess Switch_.”

“ _The Knight Before Christmas_ ,” Taeyong says just as Jaehyun replies, “ _The Princess Switch._ ”

Taeyong turns to Jaehyun, disgust barely concealed on his features, and Jaehyun just shrugs.

“You can’t seriously be picking that shit over _The Knight Before Christmas,_ not again,” Taeyong tells Jaehyun, shoving at his chest. “Tell me one good thing about that movie.”

“Vanessa’s British accent,” Jaehyun says, “also the like, thirty plot holes.”

“This makes me sick to my stomach, but Jaehyun’s right, again,” Doyoung says, in the process of searching for _The Princess Switch_ on Netflix, “Taeyong, please start making some good points so I don’t have to side with him for a third time. I think that would ruin me.”

“You’re such an asshole,” Jaehyun says and Doyoung sticks his middle finger out at him.

“I was making a good point, which is that _The Princess Switch_ is way worse than _The Knight Before Christmas_ ,” Taeyong says, settling back in his seat and crossing his arms, evidently sulking. Jaehyun rolls his eyes and ruffles his hair. “You should have backed me up.”

“And how exactly is the knight one better?”

“One, the knight is dumb as shit,” Taeyong replies, counting on his fingers, having set the ice cream tub on his lap, “two, he almost has a monk haircut, so a perfect reminder of Timmy. Three, the movie actually makes some sort of sense—”

—Doyoung’s phone rings.

“Oh, thank God,” Jaehyun says, “I can’t believe you tried to say that _The Knight Before Christmas_ made sense.”

“It makes more than _The Princess Switch_ , you clown,” Taeyong says, before he shakes his head. “Doyoung, pick up your phone, bitch.”

Doyoung rolls his eyes, though he picks up his phone nonetheless, glancing at the caller ID before he picks up. “Hello?”

“ _Uh, hey,_ ” Johnny’s voice greets him on the other side, “ _didn’t think you’d pick up. Are you—are you home?_ ”

Doyoung sits back on the couch, mildly aware of the smile playing at his lips. “Sorry, should I be somewhere else?”

“ _It’s Saturday night_ ,” Johnny says, amused. “ _You should be out, probably._ ”

“You told me not to go out with guys who aren’t into me!” Doyoung says, sitting up. He ignores Taeyong’s questioning look and Jaehyun’s confused one, instead adding, “who am I even supposed to be out with?”

“ _Right,_ ” Johnny says, laughter on his tongue, “ _well, listen—_ ”

“—ow, fuck,” Doyoung presses his phone to his shirt, hoping it’s going to at least muffle what he’s saying. “Taeyong, are you fucking insane?”

“Who is it,” Taeyong asks, as if he hasn’t just kicked Doyoung too hard in an attempt to get him to answer. He does press a hand to Doyoung’s thigh as a way of apologizing, so Doyoung just sighs, loudly, as he leans forward to rub his leg.

“Johnny,” he says, to which Taeyong raises his eyebrows suggestively and Jaehyun looks a second away from wolf-whistling. “Don’t you fucking dare,” he tells him, before lifting his phone to his ear again, “sorry about that, uh, you were saying?”

“ _I didn’t know you were with friends,_ ” Johnny says, sounding like he’s holding back laughter, and Doyoung figures he deserves that. “ _That’s a bit better than spending Saturday night alone like some incel._ ”

“We’re just watching Christmas movies,” Doyoung says, “it’s really not much.”

“ _Better that than nothing,_ ” Johnny says. He seemingly exits his office because the sound of people talking in the background fills the call and Doyoung scrunches up his nose. “ _I was going to just leave a message, but—_ ”

“—no one leaves voice messages anymore,” Doyoung says, “you know I wouldn’t have listened to that shit. You could have just texted me, maybe?”

“ _Maybe,_ ” Johnny says, _“anyway, what I was saying is, uh—I’m hosting a party? Next weekend. I think you should come_.”

“Oh,” Doyoung says, trying to picture that. He’s not too against the idea before he remembers Johnny is friends with Seungyoun and—well. “Won’t Seungyoun be there? That’s bound to be awkward as shit.”

“Be where?” Jaehyun asks.

Doyoung covers his phone with his hand, “a party Johnny’s throwing next week.”

“ _No, no, he won’t be there,_ ” Johnny’s saying when Doyoung lifts his phone back to his ear, “ _he’s at some—he’s out of town for the week, so there’s no chance you’ll see each other there. But—there’s going to be a lot of hot singles, yeah?_ ”

“Hot singles?” Doyoung laughs, “what are you, an ad? Come on, at least try to sound normal.”

“ _Says the guy who needs me to help him get laid—_ ”

“—it’s not about getting laid, oh my god,” Doyoung says, pressing a hand to his temple. “It’s about finding, you know, the one. Love and all that.”

“ _Right,_ ” Johnny says, “ _well, you won’t have anything to worry about, because you’ll have plenty of chances to meet the love of your life if you come to the party, yeah?_ ”

“And plenty of chances to make a clown out of myself, too.”

“ _You do that all the time, anyway,_ ” Johnny says and Doyoung can just imagine the teasing smile he must be sporting. “ _But you don’t have to worry about that, not this time. I’ll help you through it and shit._ ”

“Oh, yeah, that’d be great,” Doyoung says, “figure it’d be awkward for both of us if I was as much of a train wreck as usual. For you as the host, I mean, and for me as… me.”

Jaehyun snickers in the background.

“ _You’re getting better at this whole thing, though,_ ” Johnny says, “ _you’re like—only half as much of a train wreck as you were before, which I think is a pretty big achievement—shit, fuck, hold on, someone just broke like, all the plates we have. I’ll catch you later, then, yeah? Maybe even at the party._ ”

“Maybe even at the party,” Doyoung echoes, “good luck with the whole plate thing.”

“ _Thanks,_ ” Johnny laughs, “ _Bye, Doyoung_.”

“Bye,” Doyoung says, cradling the phone to his chest as soon as Johnny hangs up. He stares at the tv screen for a moment, watching Vanessa Hudgens talk with her love interest, before he turns to Jaehyun and Taeyong and it all clicks into place. “Holy shit.”

“What?”

“He’s into me.”

“Huh?”

“Aren’t you just—isn’t he just your dating mentor or some shit?” Taeyong asks, frowning. “How is him inviting you to a party a way of confessing?”

“Look—it’s like in _Some Kind of Wonderful,_ ” Doyoung says, clasping his hands together, “Johnny is Watts, I’m Eric Stoltz.”

“You’ve lost me,” Taeyong says, “the fuck is _Some_ _Kind of Wonderful?_ ”

“It’s this old movie,” Jaehyun says, waving his hand dismissively. “Kinda sucks, honestly.”

“It’s a great movie,” Doyoung says, almost shaking with excitement, “that’s not the point, though—the point is, the point is Watts is helping Eric Stoltz go on a date with Amanda Jones, even though Watts herself is in love with Eric Stoltz. That’s what happening here.”

“Right,” Taeyong says, nodding slowly, “and we’ve reached this conclusion how, exactly?”

“Amanda Jones—she’s like… Seungyoun?” Jaehyun asks, tilting his head to the side in thought. “And like, all the other men Johnny’s tried to help you with, like the lawyer or the vet?”

“Yes, exactly!” Doyoung exclaims, jumping in his seat. “But what I’m getting at—what I’m getting at is that he’s into me. One hundred percent, I’m certain of this.”

“That’s why he’s spending so much time with you,” Jaehyun says, nodding. Suddenly he’s got the highest IQ in the universe. “And that’s why he told Youngho to come on Thursday when the date was on Tuesday.”

“God, it’s all falling into place,” Doyoung says, “there’s so many signs that I just—missed, holy shit.”

“Okay, okay, before we get too ahead of ourselves, tell me the signs,” Taeyong says, not at all looking convinced, “so I can make sure the two of you aren’t just going insane.”

“Well, well, okay so, first, he told me it was nice to hear from me when I called him,” Doyoung says, to which Jaehyun nods energetically, clearly down with Doyoung’s thesis, “and then when I called and he was with someone—on a date—he blew them off to talk to me on the phone.”

“Okay—I can kind of see it,” Taeyong says, “since—I mean, if he wasn’t into you, he wouldn’t have—answered the phone, maybe? Or ended the call quickly—how long did the call last?”

“Quite a bit,” Doyoung says, “we talked for like, a few minutes at least.”

“Okay, okay,” Taeyong says, sucking in his cheeks. “Then… maybe, yeah, I can see it.”

“Listen to this, though,” Doyoung says, “the guy he was going to set me up with? Noh Youngho?” He waits for a response but both of them just stare blindly at him, and so he adds, “that’s not a real person. There was no guy he was setting me up with.”

“Okay, that’s a stretch,” Taeyong says, “what proof do you even have of that—”

“Youngho is Johnny’s korean name,” Doyoung says. Taeyong just frowns at him as if he’s finally lost his mind. “He told me so, I swear. Noh Youngho. Suh Johnny. It’s the same person.”

“Where’d he get the Noh from, then?”

“It’s just there for some variety or whatever,” Doyoung says, “to make it less clear. To make a funny reference to one of my failed dates, maybe, I don’t know, but it still rhymes with Suh, doesn’t it? He couldn’t make it very obvious, so he had to go for the next best thing—”

“—holy shit,” Jaehyun laughs in surprise, eyes wide, “holy shit, you’re right. He was setting you up with—himself, god, the genius of it all. Maybe I should start getting dating classes from him.”

“I mean, he showed up without Youngho, giving some half-assed reason as to why he’s not there, and we basically had a date?” Doyoung says, “and—I mean, he just invited me to a party at his place.”

Taeyong furrows his brows, a frown etched on his lips, and Jaehyun says, “yes—god, he even knew we were there and didn’t invite us.”

“I think that’s just because we’re us,” Taeyong says, before he shakes his head, “I—I mean, if you’re sure of this, Doyoung—”

“—I am,” Doyoung grins, “I’m so sure of it. Have literally never been so sure of anything.”

.

Doyoung’s still practically shaking with excitement a week later when he gets to the party. He had asked Taeyong and Jaehyun to accompany him as some sort of buddy system, but surprisingly enough, both of them had been busy. Despite them both being perpetually embarrassing, he does wish that at least Taeyong was here with him, but he’s got no such luck. He should have asked Sooyoung to join him, he thinks dejectedly as he settles in a corner of the living room, practically guarding the bowl of pretzels as he grabs handfuls of them every few seconds.

The only comfort is seeing Johnny working around, interacting with all the guests, seeing him laugh and act the part of a host perfectly. Doyoung nearly spasms with anticipation every time he so much as catches a glimpse of him, already planning out how everything’s going to work out between them once they get a bit of time alone.

He’s in the middle of imagining how exactly Johnny will propose to him when he hears a woman say, “hey,” and he turns to see her holding out a hand for him to take, “I’m Jinsoul.”

“I’m Heejin,” the one standing next to her says, nodding at him.

“Doyoung,” he says, forcing a tight smile as he shakes Jinsoul’s hand and nods back at Heejin. He moves closer to them before leaning against the table. “So, uh, how do you two know Johnny?”

“We don’t,” Jinsoul deadpans. At his questioning look, she adds, “our friend, Wooseok, got told about this by some guy—uh, what was his name?”

“Seungyoun,” Heejin says and Doyoung presses his lips into a thin line.

“Right,” he says.

“What about you, though?” Heejin asks, “how do you know Johnny?”

“Well—uh, I don’t want to sound presumptuous, but,” Doyoung smiles, laughing nervously as he fiddles with his hands. He looks up, searching the room, before his eyes settle on Johnny and his heart speeds up. “I’m almost certain that something’s going to happen between us. Today, I mean.”

Jinsoul coos in response, while Heejin says, “so—are you here as just a guest or as his date? Like a cohost?”

“Uh,” Doyoung says, turning to look at the two of them.

“Oh, I hate that,” Jinsoul says, sending him an apologetic smile. He furrows his brows at her, confused once again, and she adds, “when you don’t know whether you’re a date or not, I mean. Like—should you bring a friend alone? Should you help host the party and shit? Should you stay after the party ends for some alone time or whatever.”

“Well, um, he didn’t really say,” Doyoung tells them and Jinsoul pats his shoulder gently. He leans forward to pick up another handful of pretzels, resting it on a napkin he got earlier. “I’m sure I’m more than just a guest, though. I mean—there have been signs and everything.”

“Mhm,” Heejin hums. “Right.”

“Hope it goes well,” Jinsoul says, though not before sharing a rather pitying look with Heejin. Doyoung chooses not to dwell on it.

.

Jinsoul and Heejin leave Doyoung’s company not much later and he migrates from one pretzel bowl to another, making half-assed conversation with whoever approaches him, until he settles against the wall, holding a cup of rather disgusting beer. He makes a mental note to tell Johnny later to get a different brand—or at least a flavored one—for the next party, which they’ll cohost together, of course. For now, though, he’s content with not doing much, simply watching the party.

He doesn’t know how long he vibes like that until he spots Johnny in the crowd, their eyes meeting across the room, and Johnny wastes little time before making his way to Doyoung.

“Hey,” he says, once he’s close enough to be heard over the loud music. He lightly touches Doyoung’s forearm and Doyoung tries not to bristle in excitement. “I had no idea so many people would show up, damn.”

“Hey,” Doyoung says back, smiling at Johnny. “Even so, it is really nice. Despite the—the number of people.”

“Thanks,” Johnny says. He taps Doyoung on the shoulder before he starts making his way through the crowd again, motioning for Doyoung to follow. “Anyone hit on you, yet?”

“Uh,” Doyoung thinks of the few men he’s talked to, considers teasing Johnny and pretending that he’s found the love of his life, before he decides that’d be cruel. “Not really.”

Johnny hums. “I though I saw you talking to some people earlier? Maybe you just didn’t catch that they were into you?”

“Maybe,” Doyoung says, “though—”

“—I could help you figure out if they were,” Johnny says, “into you, I mean. Could help you judge their level of interest or some shit. So long as you give me a play-by-play of what happened.”

“No, no, it’s fine,” Doyoung says, waving a hand. _Johnny cuck kink,_ he makes a mental note to remember. “Even I could tell they weren’t into me.”

“I think flop,” Johnny stops in his step once they’ve reached the kitchen. He turns to face Doyoung, leaning slightly on the counter, “god, it really sucks ass that Youngho wasn’t able to come by. I’m like, almost one hundred percent certain you two would have hit it off.”

Doyoung smiles, just barely able to bite back his laughter. God, he should be much better at this shit. “Okay, right,” he says, then adds, doing air quotation marks, “Youngho.”

Johnny tilts his head at him, pressing his lips into a thin line and narrowing his eyes. Doyoung can’t help a few strings of laughter bubbling out his mouth and Johnny furrows his brows together before he shakes his head and gives Doyoung a rather confused smile.

“…right,” he says. He stares at Doyoung for a few moments before he says, “well, hopefully he comes to the next one. Or we can go out for drinks again next week.”

“Oh, yeah,” Doyoung says, waving a hand dismissively, unable to stop his grin, “we can definitely go out for drinks next week.”

Johnny gives him a look, confused again. Doyoung writes it off as him not expecting Doyoung to have caught on that early to the fact that Johnny was head over heels in love with him.

“Yeah, um, I’ll see what I can do,” Johnny says, “well, anyway, uh—sorry to ask but I have to go make another liquor run and the food looks like it could use some refreshing, uh… would you mind spending a few minutes or so refilling and—”

“—like co-hosting?” Doyoung asks, feeling as if he’s been doused with euphoria as everything starts to fall into place.

“Uh, okay, yeah,” Johnny says, nodding, even if a bit unsurely. “Uh—sure.” He shakes his head, gesturing behind him, “just refilling the chips and shit like that.”

“Will do,” Doyoung says, beaming at him. “No problem.”

“Thanks,” Johnny says, pulling his brows together for a moment, “oh, uh, you’ll find them on top of the fridge.”

Rather unfortunately, Doyoung does not get many chances to talk with Johnny after that, spending his time refiling bowls and making additional dip, ignoring the way his heart shakes whenever he and Johnny meet eyes, whenever he glances at the clock and sees how late it’s getting. It only gets worse as people start leaving and pass smiles and thanks for the invitations his way, though it reaches its peak when he and Johnny are the only ones left in his apartment, collecting empty bottles and dirty plastic cups left behind on nearly all the surfaces.

Doyoung’s working quietly instead of trying to initiate the conversation—he’ll convince himself later it was to seem coy, but in truth he doesn’t want to scare Johnny away like he’s scared away countless other men. Not to mention that Johnny’s put on some old song in the background, humming along to it as they clean, and Doyoung doesn’t want to interrupt.

He doesn’t have to, in the end, because Johnny says, “thanks for staying behind and helping me clean up, by the way. You didn’t have to.”

“There wasn’t that much to clean up,” Doyoung lies, watching as Johnny ties the last garbage bag, setting it by the door to his apartment. “I barely helped.”

“Don’t undersell yourself,” Johnny chastises him. He lifts his hand as if to reach for Doyoung before thinking better of it—and Doyoung can definitely relate, considering how his nerves won’t stop flaring up. “Without you, it would’ve taken me hours to do this.”

“It would not have taken you that long,” Doyoung says, “and this was only, you know, the surface cleaning and shit. You’re definitely going to have to mop your floors—I’ve definitely seen more than one person spill beer on the floor and barely clean it up.”

“I’m gonna pretend I didn’t hear that.”

“I can help you, if you’d like,” Doyoung shrugs, biting back a smile, “it’s not like I have anything to do tomorrow, too, so. You know. I’d be all yours.”

“Uh,” Johnny stammers before he laughs, “not that that wouldn’t be lovely and all, but I’d feel bad for making you come all the way here just to clean. While you’re hangover, too."

“I barely drank anything,” Doyoung says.

Johnny’s brows furrow. “Oh,” he lets out, after a moment. “Well, still.” He clears his throat, “um, anyway, since it’s getting late—if you need a ride or anything, I can call you an Uber?”

And here Doyoung thought people like Johnny would be immune to getting cold feet over things like this… clearly not. Lucky for him, the party gave Doyoung just enough time to build up his courage for this, letting him go over multiple scenarios of how this could go in preparation for this conversation.

“I think we should talk first,” he says, stepping closer to Johnny.

“Okay,” Johnny says, dragging the word out. “About, uh, about what, exactly?”

“About us.”

Johnny blinks at him.

“About… us?” He repeats. Doyoung rolls his eyes as he nods, though he can’t hide that the clueless act is pretty endearing on Johnny. “What’s there to talk about?”

“Don’t be silly,” Doyoung says, “I think we both know what this has been leading up to.”

“Right,” Johnny laughs, almost nervous. “If you don’t mind me asking, what exactly has this been leading to?”

“Not that this isn’t cute,” Doyoung reaches to pat Johnny’s cheek for emphasis, keeping his hand there, “but you can drop the act. I can definitely think of a couple other more interesting things we could be doing instead of this.”

“Like what, exactly?”

“Like—can I kiss you?”

Johnny doesn’t respond but his eyes do skip down Doyoung’s face to his lips, and Doyoung takes that as a sign to continue. He wraps his arm around Johnny’s shoulders, fingers letting on the back of his nape and skimming over his hair as he moves closer. Now, all Johnny has to do is say yes and—

“—what—what are you doing,” Johnny says. His hands come down on Doyoung’s shoulders, gently pushing him down as he leans away from his face. “Why are you—why would you kiss me?”

“Um,” Doyoung stammers, “I already said you can drop the act.”

“What act?” Johnny shrugs off Doyoung’s hands, stepping away from him, and Doyoung lets his hands drop to his side awkwardly. “What are you talking about?”

This—this is not how it was supposed to go, Doyoung thinks.

“Are we not—are we, um,” Doyoung says, struggling to think of what to say. None of the scenarios he thought of prepared him for this very outcome—none of them prepared him for Johnny looking at him as if he’s gone insane. “I mean, all the best relationships grow out of friendships, after all, and I just thought—I thought that—I don’t know, but you’ve been… I mean you’ve been showing signs that you’re into me and I just—”

“—what are you talking about?” Johnny repeats. He sighs, loudly, carding his fingers through his hair before he speaks. “I’m not—what signs have I even shown you? I’ve shown you no signs.”

“You have,” Doyoung insists, “you have! There was—you said it was nice to hear me, you talked with me even when you were with someone, the, uh, the half movie night we had, together and, and, you know, things like that.”

“That’s what—that’s what friends do,” Johnny tells him, “friends talk to each other like that.”

“Okay, but what about the—what about the date we had?” Doyoung asks. “Friends don’t go on dates.”

“What date? We didn’t go on any date.”

“When—when you were supposed to set me up with your friend, uh, Noh Youngho, and he didn’t show up and you said it was because you told him the wrong day, and—I mean, there clearly was no friend.” Even as he says it, his confidence fails, making him fidget with his hands—he should’ve listened to Taeyong, clearly, instead of coming here to make a fool of himself. “You know, you made him up—I mean, he has your name, Youngho, so I just…it makes sense.”

Johnny stares at him.

“Do you hear yourself?” He asks, finally. “Do you hear how you sound? I didn’t—why would I make someone up just to go on a date with you?”

“I—I don’t know, but—”

“—did you even listen to a single thing I told you?” Johnny says, “I’ve been telling you, since we met, that if a man wants to date you, he’ll make it happen. He’ll ask you out. Did I—I didn’t ask you out, Doyoung.”

“You didn’t, but,” Doyoung says and—Johnny’s not wrong, is he? There’s nothing he can even say to counter him. “You didn’t.”

“Why would you even do this,” Johnny says, not even listening to Doyoung as he rubs his temples, looking frustrated out of his mind. “Why would you build this shit up in your head and—take every single little thing and twist it into something else entirely, searching for some meaning it doesn’t have—one it never had, and—”

“—okay, you can stop,” Doyoung says, “I get your point.”

“I don’t understand,” Johnny continues, “why would you do this to yourself? Why would you make such a big deal out of nothing and be—and act so delusional, and make yourself out to be some pathetic loser?”

Doyoung feels tears prickling at his eyes and he hates himself for it, curling his hands into fists in an effort to stop them from spilling over his lashes. “I get it,” he tells Johnny, ignoring the way his voice breaks, “I shouldn’t have, I made a mistake, I misinterpreted what you did. I get it, believe me.”

Johnny stays silent for a moment, hand reaching to pinch the bridge of his nose. “I just—why me? You’ve had guys be into you—even the ones on Tinder you showed me. You’ve gone on dates. I was going to set you up with a friend. And—and you’ve done this before. You’ve gone crazy over some guy who didn’t call you who you thought was interested in you. Has that ever worked out for you? Have you learned nothing from your past mistakes?”

“Don’t—don’t use that against me,” Doyoung says, finally, swallowing past the lump in his throat so he can speak. “I—I get that I can be a bit much sometimes, but I’d rather be like that than be like you.”

“Excuse me?”

“Sure, I read into things a bit much, maybe, and—and I _try_ , too much, sometimes, and I let myself be swayed by the smallest things, but at least I’m not an asshole,” Doyoung feels tears slip down his cheeks but it’s not like that matters, not anymore. “And—and I’m sorry, for being mistaken and thinking that maybe, just maybe, someone—that _you_ reciprocated what I felt. I’m sorry for putting too much worth into things and—obviously, they don’t—they don’t have to mean shit, but you don’t have to act like such an asshole when telling me they don’t.”

Silence fills the apartment as Johnny doesn’t reply and Doyoung wipes his tears and makes his way to the coatrack, picking up and shrugging on his jacket. He finds his phone and wallet on the dresser by the entrance, too, and stuffs them into his pockets. It’s only when he turns to the door, ready to walk out, that Johnny seems to startle awake.

“Doyoung—”

“—I don’t want to hear it,” Doyoung cuts him off, turning to face Johnny, who looks more distraught and out of place than anything. “You can think you’re better than me, because you don’t care about the men you go out with and sleep with and because you’ve devised some ridiculous set of rules that are—that are what? That are supposed to show you nothing really matters? That everyone is expendable to you? You’re not better than me, Johnny. Because—because while I get hurt and make an ass of myself half the time, at least I’m trying. At least I put myself out there, time and time again, and one day, it’s going to work. One day, I’ll find someone—someone who won’t think I’m delusional or crazy or stupid. I’m sure of it. And you? You’re going to stay alone, making no deeper connection with anyone until you realize that—that the way you go about this isn’t right.”

Once again, Johnny seems at a loss of words as he stares at Doyoung, opening and closing his mouth, and Doyoung just shakes his head.

“Bye, Johnny,” he forces out, and leaves the apartment without looking back.

.

Surprisingly, Doyoung doesn’t have too much of a breakdown on his way home.

When he leaves Johnny’s place and has a minute to call down, he considering calling Taeyong or Jaehyun to pick him up, knowing that either of them would be willing to. He feels bad about the prospect of ruining their night, though, so instead he calls an Uber and has to wait ten minutes for it to arrive.

During those ten minutes, Johnny doesn’t run out after him.

It’s during those ten minutes, too, that Doyoung sobers up a bit, that he wipes his eyes dry and starts to feel a bit bad about the way he’d lashed out at Johnny. He starts to feel a bit bad but it’s not like Johnny had been particularly nice, either—just the thought of what he had said burns at the edges of Doyoung’s skin. It hurts to think that all this time he’s been simply expendable to Johnny, that Johnny couldn’t give less of a shit about how he felt unless he could be entertained by it.

It feels like shit, but it’s not like he hasn’t gotten over worse, he thinks, getting into the Uber and pretending he hasn’t cried. He’s gotten over worse and he’ll get over this in due time, sure, but he still drags out the pint of ice cream from the freezer to his room when he gets home, eats so much he feels sick before he falls asleep.

He feels much better in the morning.

There’s an element of embarrassment to taking the now empty ice cream container to the kitchen to throw it out and the dirty spoon at one pm, shortly after he wakes up, but Doyoung stomachs it. It’s not like it’s worse than everything that’s happened at the party—just thinking about that makes him cringe, makes him want to change his identity and move up to Antarctica for the rest of his life. It just mildly comforts him to see Taeyong slumped over the kitchen table, staring into his nearly empty coffee cup, looking like he’s in the middle of losing his mind.

“Your night go that bad, huh?” Doyoung asks, throwing the spoon into the sink and stuffing the ice cream container into the trash can before Taeyong can see it was his. “Everything okay?”

“Uh,” Taeyong looks up at him as if Doyoung’s words broke him out of a daze, his eyes taking a moment to focus on him. “Yeah, just—just tired.”

Doyoung hums. “When’d you get home? It was shit late when I got here but you were still out.”

“Stayed out till morning,” Taeyong says, dragging a hand over his face as he leans back in his chair, looking exhausted. “It was already bright out when we—uh, when I made it back to the apartment.” He shakes his head before Doyoung has the chance to ask him more about that and adds, “anyway—how’d it go, yesterday?”

“Like shit,” Doyoung deadpans and Taeyong reaches out to touch his arm lightly. “It’s fine, though. You were right to be cautious about me thinking he’s mad horny for me. I should have listened.”

“Hey, no, no,” Taeyong says, “don’t say that.”

“I mean, it’s the truth, isn’t it?” Doyoung asks, even as Taeyong pulls him to sit in the chair next to him and wraps his arms tight around Doyoung. “I made an idiot out of myself. Got too invested in something that doesn’t even exist.”

“You said you felt some sort of connection, though,” Taeyong argues, pressing his cheek to Doyoung’s shoulder and Doyoung thinks they both need this, probably. “You can’t feel a connection if it doesn’t exist.”

“He didn’t feel it, though,” Doyoung says, his voice straining. He lifts his hands to his face, covering it as he tries to hold back his tears. He shouldn’t be crying over this, he thinks. “And what does that say? About me?”

“It’s not your fault you feel a lot,” Taeyong says, “it’s not your fault—”

“—that I’m delusional?” Doyoung asks, “that’s what this is, really. I’m delusional.”

“Just because you feel a lot doesn’t mean you’re delusional,” Taeyong rubs his shoulder with his hand. “Even if the signs weren’t there—or they were, but meant something else, it just means you made a mistake. It doesn’t mean you’re delusional.”

“I think we both know that’s not true.”

“I don’t,” Taeyong says, and he looks sincere when Doyoung peeks through his fingers. “Know that’s not true, I mean, because I don’t think it is.”

“Johnny thought different,” Doyoung argues, “Johnny thought different and he thought I was a pathetic loser, thought I was crazy, thought I—”

“—Doyoung,” Taeyong says, softly but sternly, “I’m sure he doesn’t think that.”

“He told me that himself.”

“Oh,” Taeyong replies, his hold around Doyoung tightening, “he’s an asshole, then. And clearly fucking stupid, considering you’re neither crazy nor a pathetic loser.”

“You call me crazy all the time,” Doyoung lets his hands slip off his face and into his lap before Taeyong takes hold of them, squeezing lightly. “An incel, too.”

“That’s because you are a little crazy and an incel sometimes,” he says with a smile and Doyoung can’t help but reciprocate it. “You’re not a pathetic loser, though, I swear. If you were, I would have dropped you years ago.”

“Thank you,” Doyoung says, “that’s all very reassuring.”

“I know,” Taeyong says, his voice low as he stares at their interlocked hands, as his thumb skips over Doyoung’s. “Do you want to go cuddle on the couch?”

“God, yes,” Doyoung stands up when Taeyong lets go of him, sighing, “these seats are so fucking uncomfortable. Why did we buy them?”

“Didn’t Jaehyun find them at some garage sale?”

“That explains it,” Doyoung says, “fucking Jaehyun. Couldn’t he get more comfortable chairs?”

Taeyong smiles as he sits down on the couch, backing himself into the corner and opening his arms for Doyoung to lie down next to him, his hand comfortably finding a place in Doyoung’s hair. “We can make him buy those like, pillows for chairs from Ikea. I’m sure he won’t mind.”

“He’ll buy the shittiest ones just to spite us,” Doyoung laughs, closing his eyes.

“He’ll buy the shittiest ones because he has no taste,” Taeyong corrects, “can hardly blame him for that.”

“Mhm,” Doyoung hums, taking hold of one of their pillows and hugging it to his chest, and Taeyong continues brushing his fingers through his hair. “Did he come back, by the way? Jaehyun, I mean. He also wasn’t home when I came back.”

“He came home, yeah,” Taeyong says, yawning. “We watched, uh, the Glee episode where Blaine almost gets blinded by the slushee.”

“Any particular reason for that?”

“Sebastian mad sexy when blinding Blaine,” Taeyong shrugs and Doyoung pretends to think about it before he agrees. “Fell asleep before we got to that part, though. Jaehyun was already gone when I woke up, but he left a note about being called in to work or something.”

“God, I’m so happy I don’t work retail anymore,” Doyoung says, running his fingers down the back of the pillow. “Capitalism is a nightmare. Hopefully his soundcloud rapper career takes off soon.”

“It probably could, granted he was serious about it,” Taeyong says. Doyoung hums in agreement and Taeyong stays silent for a moment, hand stagnant in Doyoung’s hair, before he adds, “anyway, if you want to—if you want to talk some more about whatever went down with Johnny, then feel free to? I don’t want to be overbearing or anything but—you know. I’m always here to hear you out.”

“Same applies to you,” Doyoung says, “if you want to talk about why you were having a stroke over your coffee when I walked in or whatever.”

“Don’t change the topic,” Taeyong scowls at him, though there’s no real irritation behind it. “If you want to vent or rant, then I’m here. If not, we can… do whatever.”

“There’s not really much to talk about,” Doyoung shrugs, “I thought—I mean, I thought there was something between us. That Johnny was into me, maybe, and that we could get together and date and that he wouldn’t be one of those guys that didn’t call me back.”

“I’m sorry,” Taeyong says. He presses his cheek to the back of Doyoung’s head, letting his hand drop to lightly rub Doyoung’s shoulder, “that sucks. I think Johnny flop.”

“Not really,” Doyoung sighs, deciding he might as well tell Taeyong the whole story. “I, uh, stayed after the party, right? I helped him clean and then, uh,” he feels his cheeks redden, already embarrassed, “I tried to kiss him. He rejected me.”

Taeyong winces. “Shit.”

“He rejected me and then, to make things worse, went on a whole rant about how people can be so delusional and make something out of nothing,” Doyoung says, “and like—I know this is what I did but, god, _god,_ did he have to be so—so mean about it?”

“Men ain’t shit,” Taeyong says, “I’m really sorry about the whole thing, though. I hope you… I don’t know, I hope he apologizes. If he doesn’t apologize, fuck that bitch.”

“Yeah,” Doyoung agrees, quiet for a moment before he adds, “I don’t know though, maybe a bit of—of distance or whatever will do me good. I’m not—I can’t hide that I did have some feelings for him and it’s—I don’t know. Maybe this is for the best.”

“Maybe,” Taeyong says. “I’m really sorry it turned out like this.”

Doyoung sucks his cheeks in, nodding, before he takes a deep breath. “It’s whatever,” he says, “we don’t have to dwell on it anymore.”

“If you want to, I don’t mind.”

“I don’t want to,” Doyoung says, “would much rather focus on anything else. Like what you were doing out all night yesterday?”

Taeyong rolls his eyes, not even bothering to hold back his grin. “You’re such a fucking gossip.”

“Maybe,” he allows, “but I’m mostly worried, since I gather it has something to do with you being out of it just now, doesn’t it? You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to, though. We can just—uh, watch the robots movie from 2005.”

“God, the robots movie from 2005,” Taeyong sighs. He taps his fingers on Doyoung’s forearm for a second, pensive, before he says, “I’d rather not talk about it, at least not now, uh. I mean, it’s kind—it’s kind of eating away at me but I need to, uh, think about it? For a bit.”

“That’s fine,” Doyoung says, finding Taeyong’s hand and squeezing it gently in a show of support. “No worries. My doors are always open for you, king.”

“Thanks,” Taeyong says, “you ready to watch the robots movie from 2005, now?”

.

It’s late when Jaehyun comes back home and though Taeyong’s fast asleep, Doyoung’s now watching _Shark Tale_ , probably a tad bit too invested in it. It’s nothing that interesting, he’d reasoned when Taeyong picked the movie, but he can barely tear his eyes away when Jaehyun greets him.

“Make me some tea, please?”

“Couldn’t even spare a _good afternoon_?” Jaehyun asks, kicking off his shoes and hanging his jacket on the coatrack so carelessly he almost knocks it over. “Not even a _welcome home_?”

“Welcome home, gorgeous,” Doyoung says. “You gonna make me that tea, now?”

“God, you’re insufferable,” Jaehyun says, though he sets some water to boil, anyway, and shuffles in their cabinets in search of a clean cup. “Taeyong, you want—”

“—he’s asleep,” Doyoung says, “kinda a miracle, considering how loud you were just now.”

“Taeyong’s asleep?”

“Yeah and you better not wake him up.”

“I won’t,” Jaehyun says and admittedly, his rummaging through cabinets does become a bit quieter. “What kind of tea do you want?”

“Regular black is fine,” Doyoung says, receiving a hum in response. He’s occupied with the movie for a few moments, wondering if there’s an off-broadway knock-off of it that he could star in, before he asks, “how was your date, yesterday?”

“It wasn’t really a date,” Jaehyun says. He shuffles around in the kitchen, pulling open the doors to the fridge, “and—oh, didn’t Taeyong tell you?”

“Uh,” Doyoung says, looking up confused at Jaehyun, who pays him no mind. “I mean, he told me that you watched Glee in the morning, but not much besides that, so…”

“It was nice, like really nice,” Jaehyun says, taking out some eggs and milk. “We like, I don’t know, just vibed around the city and shit.”

“As in…?”

“As in we didn’t do anything in particular, you dipshit,” Jaehyun says, “just—I don’t know. We got coffee and then just kind of rode in empty buses till they stopped coming. Went window shopping and shit.”

“Aw, that’s weirdly cute for your standards,” Doyoung says, “tell me you at least dropped into some disgusting, half-lit bar that smells like piss. All I need to hear.”

“I didn’t drop into some piss bar,” Jaehyun says, though he sounds more amused than annoyed. “That’s where you think I spend my time?”

“Isn’t it?”

Jaehyun huffs, silent for a moment, and Doyoung watches as he scours through their cabinets. “Uh, anyway,” he says, pulling out flour onto the counter, “I’m going to be making pancakes, you want some?”

“Aren’t you going to burn them? I don’t vibe with burned pancakes.”

“I’m not going to burn them,” Jaehyun protests weakly, pulling out a dented pan and oil. “I’m getting better.”

“You made the fire alarm go off when you tried to make them last week,” Doyoung says, lifting his eyebrows pointedly at him, “I’d hardly consider that getting better.”

“I’m not going to make the fire alarm go off,” Jaehyun huffs, “you’ve got to have better faith in me, man. This is off-putting.”

“Am I wrong?” Doyoung asks, resting his head back on the couch cushions as Jaehyun gets to work. “But whatever, pause. Is that it?”

“Is that it?” Jaehyun echoes. “What do you mean? Also, is it two cups of flour or less?”

“The resident cook is asleep,” Doyoung says, even though he feels Taeyong stir next to him, “just pull up the recipe and let him have some rest. I was asking about the date. Did you really just do that?”

“Do what,” Taeyong murmurs, twisting in his place, and Doyoung lightly brushes his fringe out of his face.

“I’m just talking with Jaehyun about his date,” Doyoung explains, “the one he went on yesterday.”

“Oh,” Taeyong says, sitting up properly. He rubs his eyes, silent for a moment, before he asks, “so how was it?”

“Well, he’s not really telling me much—”

“—Taeyong, do you want some tea?”

“Yes, please,” Taeyong says, “black with two teaspoons of sugar.”

“You’re not going to distract us from this, Jaehyun,” Doyoung says, “I’m set on getting to the bottom of this.”

“Wouldn’t you rather talk about your, uh, what was it?” Jaehyun asks, looking up from his phone for a moment, eyes narrowed. “The party?”

“We’ve already gone over it,” Doyoung says, waving a hand. “Nothing interesting, promise. Just embarrassed myself as per usual. Now, come on, at least give me something.”

“I already told you,” Jaehyun sighs, “we just vibed and shit.”

Taeyong scoffs. “That all you’re gonna say?”

“Exactly,” Doyoung nods, ignoring the way Jaehyun’s brows pull together, “come on, even Taeyong agrees with me. We deserve to—wait.” He narrows his eyes, turning to look at Taeyong, “you don’t like hearing about Jaehyun’s conquests. What’s this about?”

“Uh,” Taeyong says, biting his bottom lip, “I’m just curious? I mean—apparently it slapped, so I’m just… curious.”

“Right,” Doyoung says.

“So,” Taeyong says, slightly nervous laughter marking his words, “are you gonna tell us?”

“Tell you what?” Jaehyun asks, his one brain cell failing to fire. “You already—”

“—tell us how the date went,” Taeyong says.

“You know how it went,” Jaehyun says, frowning. He doesn’t counter Taeyong calling it a date, though Doyoung just chalks it down to him getting tired of doing it. “You were there.”

“Yeah, I was there, when you told me about it this morning,” Taeyong says, enunciating the words almost pointedly.

“Oh,” Jaehyun says.

“And, besides, Doyoung wasn’t there then.”

“I wasn’t, that’s true,” Doyoung cuts in.

“Yeah,” Taeyong says, “and, you know. I wouldn’t mind hearing about it again.”

Jaehyun furrows his brows before he shakes his head, letting out a sigh that sounds more fond than exasperated. “As I told the both of you already, it was very nice,” he says, looking right past Doyoung at Taeyong, sounding amused. “I don’t need to give you a play-by-play, yeah?”

“You’re useless,” Doyoung says, “Taeyong, did you know Jaehyun didn’t drag whatever unlucky bitch went out with him to the shitty clubs he usually goes to?”

“He didn’t?” Taeyong asks, the question barely coming through the intonation. “Damn, that’s crazy.”

“Right?” Doyoung says. “Very out of character.”

“And what exactly would be in character?”

“You taking your date to some shitty club you usually go to,” Doyoung tells Jaehyun, “like you did with one of my co-actors in the latest shitty play—uh, Xiaojun.”

“Xiaojun,” Jaehyun nods. “Right, okay, yeah, so maybe that’s on me.”

“Why was this one different, then?”

“Yeah,” Taeyong says, “any reason as to why you didn’t go to some shitty club?”

“Just—I don’t know, didn’t seem right,” Jaehyun says, “I don’t know, I didn’t want to treat—uh, my date as… you know, the same way I’ve treated the other ones before him, because this is different, as stupid as it may sound.”

“It doesn’t sound stupid,” Taeyong says, his voice strained.

Jaehyun smiles. “Yeah, he’s—well, he’s special to me, I guess.”

“It’s that serious?” Doyoung asks. “Holy shit. Can’t believe Jaehyun’s the one who’s going to get married the fastest out of us three. Had my bets placed on Taeyong, no lie.”

“Maybe not married, but,” Jaehyun says, “I do hope I’ll—I don’t know, have the chance to go out with him again. On a real date, this time. And that something comes out of it, maybe.” He pauses. “If not, though, then it’s fine. If he doesn’t feel the same, then it’s not—I don’t know, shit.”

“Maybe he does,” Taeyong suggests.

Jaehyun just stares at him for a moment, silent. “Maybe. We’ll see how it goes.”

“God,” Doyoung says, “it went that good and we had to pry it out of you? Unbelievable. How the fuck are you going on phenomenal dates and I’m stuck getting pissed on?”

“The Johnny thing didn’t—ah,” Jaehyun says and Doyoung doesn’t have to look behind him to see Taeyong miming for Jaehyun to shut the fuck up. “You just gotta have patience when it comes to it, man. You’re gonna, I don’t know, you’re gonna find someone when you’re ready to be with someone or some shit.”

“That’s the dumbest shit I’ve ever heard,” Doyoung says and Taeyong hums in agreement. “This is so fucked. I think I deserve a loving boyfriend now, what the fuck.”

“And yet you don’t have one,” Jaehyun says, “curious how the world works.”

“I’m sure you’ll find someone soon,” Taeyong says, before Doyoung even has the chance to lunge at Jaehyun, “someone with whom it’ll work out.”

_I wish that someone was Johnny,_ Doyoung doesn’t say. _I wish that he reciprocated all my feelings and didn’t turn out to be an asshole,_ he doesn’t say. _I wish that I hadn’t ruined all chances I might have had with him after the party yesterday,_ he doesn’t say.

What he does say is, “I hope so.”

.

Life goes on.

Life goes on and Johnny doesn’t call, he doesn’t text, and—well, it’s as Johnny himself said: if a guy doesn’t call you, he doesn’t care.

It’s a bit harder to come to terms with when the man in question is more than just some one date Doyoung went on. It’s a bit harder to come to terms with when it’s someone Doyoung started to consider a friend, someone who Doyoung might have developed a bit too many feelings for.

A bit harder doesn’t mean impossible, though.

“So,” he says as he and Sooyoung retire to the audience for a short break; neither of their roles are featured in the next scene, which means they have about half an hour of leisure time as the director makes sure the actors on stage have their lines memorized perfectly. “I’m never becoming interested in a man, ever again. Officially dropping that part of my life.”

“You sound like one of those straight girls that say they're gonna start dating girls after being dumped by their shit boyfriend,” Sooyoung says, giving him a rather judgmental look. “What’s this really about?”

Doyoung whines, a guttural sound coming from deep inside his throat as he slides down his seat, kicking his legs out in front of him. “I got rejected. By, you know. By Johnny.”

“Ah,” Sooyoung says. “Damn, that shit sucks. Get better soon, king.”

“You’re absolute shit at this,” Doyoung says, though he can’t help the laughter that slips out of his mouth. “Absolute shit. I’m never confiding in you again.”

“You said that the last five times,” Sooyoung drags her legs up onto her seat, brushing dust off her shoes, “and look where we are again.”

“No need to clown me,” Doyoung sighs, leaning against the armrest, idly watching the scene play out on the stage. “God, this is a nightmare.”

“The play?”

He hums. “I meant the—well, the situation, but the play, too, I guess,” he says, “don’t tell the director I said that. I just know the fucker’s looking for an opportunity to hand my role to the understudy.”

“Bitch hates all of us, real shit,” Sooyoung agrees, “I’m really sorry though, about the whole thing. I’ll drag you out for pity drinks if you want?”

“And pay for me? Aw, that’s so—”

“—Fuck you, I’m not paying for shit,” Sooyoung says, “I’m just volunteering to be your company while you cry at the bar or something. Even my acts of charity have their limits, I’m sad to say.”

Doyoung rolls his eyes, about to answer when his phone rings. Sooyoung sends him a questioning look and he struggles to answer his phone before the director gets annoyed and rips him a new one for not putting it on silent.

“Hi, uh, hello,” he says into the phone, sinking in his seat. Sooyoung pats his head, lightly, and he doesn’t even have the energy to shrug her off.

“ _Hello,”_ he hears, _“Is this Doyoung?_ ”

Doyoung pulls his brows together, frowning. “Yes. Uh, who is this?”

“ _This is Youngho._ ”

“…Youngho?” he says, looking at Sooyoung in question. She shakes her head at him before her eyes go wide and she gasps, almost comically. “Sorry, I don’t think—”

“— _Johnny’s friend?_ ” Youngho sounds somewhat amused and Doyoung tries not to sink deeper in his seat as the realization hits him. “O _r, well, uh, acquaintance, more of, I guess. We were supposed to meet at the—the bar but Johnny messed up the days?_ ”

“Oh,” Doyoung says. “Right, um, yeah. Sorry, I just—uh, well.”

Youngho laughs, not unkindly. “ _It’s okay,_ ” he says, “ _I was just wondering if—well, if you’d still be willing to go out with me?_ ”

“If I’d still be—oh,” Doyoung sits up, sending Sooyoung a look, “wait, you’re like—actually interested?”

“ _Uh,_ ” Youngho stammers, “ _I mean, yeah? From what Johnny told me about you, you sound really nice and sweet. I think I’d like to get to know you a bit better—granted you’d be into it, as well_.”

“Yes,” Doyoung says, maybe a bit too eagerly given the way Sooyoung shakes her head at him. “I mean, yes, I would be into it, actually.”

“ _Oh_ ,” Youngho says. He lets out a sigh of relief and Doyoung can’t help his smile. “ _That’s great. I—uh, we’ll figure out the details through text, maybe?_ ”

“Sure.”

“ _Great,”_ Youngho says. _“Talk to you later, Doyoung._ ”

“Talk to you later,” Doyoung parrots before he hangs up, slipping his phone into his lap.

“Well?” Sooyoung asks, cocking her head at him. “Was that…?”

“I have a date,” Doyoung says, turning to her, “or—I’m going to have a date. Holy shit, we’re getting my dating life back on track.”

Sooyoung sighs. “So much for giving up on men.”

.

In the end, he and Youngho decide to go out after Christmas passes; _places will be a bit less crowded then, I think,_ Youngho writes and Doyoung almost doesn’t believe him until he gets the chance to experience the crowds firsthand at the café Jaehyun works at.

“Is it like this every year?”

Jaehyun gives him a look. “…yes? Have you not noticed?”

“I have more important things to do than take note of how many people are here when I drop by,” Doyoung says, “such as familiarizing myself with my script, actually. You’re distracting me.”

“You were the one that called me over,” Jaehyun points out, kicking his legs out under the table and just managing to hit Doyoung’s calves. “Shouldn’t you have it down by heart at this point?”

“Maybe,” Doyoung says, leafing through his script. He’s technically got it memorized, but the way his mind has been a bit more clouded than usual lately’s kinda fucking his memory up. There’s not only his date with Youngho that he’s stressing over, but it’s his private chat with Youngho, too, where he struggles to seem suave and cool and sexy, without appearing too pathetic.

It’s not the radio silence between him and Johnny that’s throwing him off his rhythm, definitely not.

“I’ve just been a bit preoccupied,” he continues, waving a hand as he stops at the second scene, opening the play and laying it down flat over the table. He smooths down the page, sighing exaggeratedly, “plus it’s a bit harder to practice with my buddy gone. Who knows when he’ll be back?”

“Taeyong literally told you he’ll be back next week,” Jaehyun tells him, rolling his eyes, “he’s not even gone a week—and I’m sure he’d be up for helping you read your lines over Skype and shit.”

“He’s busy with his family,” Doyoung whines, “he doesn’t have time for us anymore.”

“He’s going to be itching to come back on day four at the latest,” Jaehyun says, “even that’s a stretch.”

“Still. It’s not the same as him actually being here.”

“I know you just want me to offer to help you,” Jaehyun says and Doyoung blinks innocently at him. “You’re a grown man. Can’t you just ask me?”

“It’s less fun that way.”

“I’m not going to offer to help you,” Jaehyun insists, apparently feeling more brattish than usual today, raising his eyebrows at Doyoung almost as if he was declaring a challenge. “Maybe you could ask Youngho, hm? I’m sure he’d be up to the task.”

“Very funny,” Doyoung says, “that’s surely going to double my chances with him instead of decreasing them to zero. Yeah, definitely. Can already see it.”

“You think he’s a theatrephobe?”

“From my experience, most men tend to be theatrephobes,” Doyoung sighs. He supposes he gets where the sentiment comes from; it’s not like acting is a very stable job unless one rises into fame and actors, especially those who work in theatres, do tend to be rather specific. It’s not like it doesn’t get rather tiring, though. “Saving the coming out moment for the third date, I think. If we get that far.”

“If you get that far?” Jaehyun echoes, eyebrow quirking up in the same exact way Taeyong’s does, when he wants to hear the rest of the drama or when he’s going through some nonsensical gossip blog. “I thought it was going all right.”

“It is going all right,” Doyoung says with a noncommittal shrug. Theoretically, there’s nothing wrong with what he and Youngho have going on currently, messaging each other every few hours. It’s just—there’s nothing deeper to it, if Doyoung’s to be honest; he doesn’t get excited when Youngho messages him, doesn’t feel his heart race in his chest when they flirt, doesn’t try and imagine the rest of his future with Youngho by his side when they think of where to go for their date.

He hasn’t even seen Youngho, Doyoung reminds himself. He hasn’t even seen Youngho or met him or talked to him—other than the one phone call they had—and that’s probably why. But even without meeting Johnny, he still felt _something_ instead of near boredom when messaging him.

Jaehyun narrows his eyes at him. “So… what’s the matter, then? Do we hate him for some reason? Does he have some shit job or something?”

“No, he, uh, he works at some bookshop, I think,” Doyoung says, “dreams of being a writer or something. I don’t know, couldn’t really,” he catches himself just as he’s about to finish the sentence, biting his tongue. “I’ll just have to find out the specifics on our date.”

“And that will be…?”

“On the twenty-eighth,” Doyoung recites, “in six days. Mad excited and all.”

“On the twenty-eighth,” Jaehyun echoes, narrowing his eyes. “That’s when Taeyong’s flying back, isn’t it?”

Doyoung blinks at him, trying to piece together those two facts. “No,” he says, finally, “he’s coming back on the twenty-ninth.”

“The twenty-eighth, I’m almost certain,” he insists, though he takes out his phone to check, anyway. “I could be wrong but—no, okay, I have Taeyong comeback date in my notes and it’s the twenty-eighth. You’ve double-booked yourself, king.”

“Fuck off,” Doyoung says. He lets his head drop onto the table, hitting the script laid out in front of him. “Going to have to reschedule my date with Youngho till after New Year’s. God. What a nightmare.”

“Taeyong’s flight lands pretty early, I think,” Jaehyun reaches across the table to ruffle the top of Doyoung’s head—probably more because he can than to comfort him, but it serves that purpose anyway. “Maybe you could manage both?”

“I think it’s rather unlikely.”

Jaehyun taps his knuckles against the back of Doyoung’s head. “I think you’ll figure something out,” he says, “and, on that note, I’ve stretched my break by five minutes and Haseul looks like she’s about to kill me. So.”

“That’s all the help you’re going to give me?” Doyoung asks, lifting his head just in time to catch Jaehyun sliding out of his seat and giving him a rather half-hearted apologetic look. “‘I think you’ll figure something out?’ Really?”

“I wasn’t the one to double-book you in the first place,” Jaehyun says, “you’ve only got yourself to blame for that.”

Doyoung waves his hand dismissively at Jaehyun instead of replying, going back to his script with a sigh. The noise around him makes the text blur, not letting him read even a single line and he gives up, sitting back in the booth with a sigh. At this rate, he really is going to be replaced by his understudy.

He doesn’t have any time to dwell on that train of thought as another coffee cup is placed in front of him, his empty one shoved to the side, and he looks up in surprise to see Haseul.

“Mind if I join you?”

“Go ahead,” he says, waving a hand, and Haseul only grins before she slides into the seat previously occupied by Jaehyun, weaving a hand through her hair. Doyoung closes his script, slipping it off the table before he pulls the coffee closer to himself. He stares at the white heart swimming on top of the coffee. “What’s this?”

“Just a latte,” Haseul says, “on the house. Jaehyun thought you could use one.”

“I just finished drinking my own,” Doyoung says, though he’s not going to shy away from a gift. He picks up the cup, letting the smell of fresh coffee flood his senses momentarily before he adds, “thank you, though. Jaehyun was kind of right, unfortunately.”

Haseul hums in reply, watching as he takes a sip. “Is it the play or, uh,” she trails off and Doyoung remembers belatedly that she is Johnny’s sister. She probably knows all about what happened at Johnny’s party, knows about how Doyoung acted and about what he said.

Probably thinks Doyoung’s an asshole, now, and she wouldn’t even be too far off the mark.

Though it’s not like she knew they were friends in the first place; she’d been surprised, too, when Doyoung mentioned not knowing she and Johnny were siblings. Maybe they don’t share specifics with each other—and maybe his reputation in her eyes is saved.

“Or something else?” She finishes, her gaze curious more than accusatory, and maybe she actually doesn’t know. “Penny for your thoughts?”

“It’s the play,” he lies, “rehearsals getting more serious and so on, you know how it goes.”

“Right. Are you sure it’s nothing else?”

“Yes,” he stresses, taking a sip of his coffee. The hot liquid burns as it runs down his throat but he ignores it, stifling a wince. “How’s Latte?”

The serious expression slips right off Haseul’s face in time to be replaced with a blinding grin and Doyoung mirrors the gesture. “She’s doing great,” Haseul says, “I think she misses you a little, maybe. How much did you spoil her, exactly?”

“I didn’t spoil her,” Doyoung laughs, setting his cup down a little too harshly, almost having the coffee spill out the sides. “I followed your instructions on everything to a tee. Maybe she just likes me more.”

“You wish,” Haseul says. “Thank you so much for looking after her while I was gone, by the way. I know I already thanked you but—you know. I hope that if I ever need someone to dogsit, you’d be up for the job?”

“Would do anything to spend more time with Latte, so yeah,” Doyoung says, feeling his smile widen as Haseul beams at him. “Why? You planning another trip soon?”

“Not really,” Haseul tells him, “busy with the café and holiday celebrations and all.”

Doyoung hums. “Maybe another time, then.”

“Maybe,” Haseul agrees. Doyoung takes another sip of his coffee—it’s oversweetened, as all coffees made by Jaehyun are, but it’s not too bad, and it’s not like he’s going to pass up a free drink. “Actually, speaking of, I do have something to ask you. It’s the reason why I joined you, actually.”

“Uh,” he tries not to tense, not doing a very good job of it. “Should I be worried?”

“No, no, obviously not,” Haseul says, the words rushing out of her mouth in just a few seconds. She reaches over the table, fingers skimming Doyoung’s skin, before settling her hands on the table and leaning forward, almost secretive. “Jungeun’s holding a New Year’s party this year and she asked me to invite you?”

“Me in particular or…?”

“I think the phrasing she used might have been _invite your friends_ ,” Haseul admits and Doyoung laughs, rolling his eyes, “but you’re my friend and therefore it’s an invitation to you. And—before you say no, here’s an incentive to come: you haven’t seen Jungeun in _so_ long. Wouldn’t it be nice to catch up?”

“Could we not catch up anywhere else?” Doyoung asks, “I’m not quite sure that catching up at a New Year’s party’s a great idea, you know.”

“You’d see her, at least?”

“I’ll think about it,” Doyoung says, knowing he really won’t. Unless Jaehyun and Taeyong have any plans, he’s content with doing what they’ve done every year since they started living together: stay home, buy cheap bubbly wine, and get piss drunk.

“If it works in my favor, then you should know Jaehyun’s already RSVP’d, practically,” and there go their traditional New Year’s Eve plans. “He’s planning to drag Taeyong, too, so unless you want to spend the night alone, you might want to look into dropping by.”

Doyoung bites back a sigh; he’s definitely going to get dragged there, whether with his roommates as they leave or to collect them from the party late in the night. “I’ll think about it,” he repeats.

“Right,” Haseul’s clearly unsatisfied with his response as she sits back in her chair, exhaling deeply. “See, I knew I should’ve asked Johnny to tell you to come. I think that would’ve given me a much more positive response.”

“Not really,” Doyoung replies, tone careful. He pauses for a few moments, quiet, before he asks, “is Johnny going to be there?”

“As of right now, it’s not looking too good,” Haseul says—and though that should be a relief to Doyoung, who’s practically accepted his fate of ending up at Jungeun’s anyway, it instead makes his heart feel heavy in his chest.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean he’s not showing up,” Haseul groans, massaging her temples, “something about the bar being open, lots of work, not enough employees to take care of it alone. Funny, since he made it work all the past years without much issue, but.”

“So he’s not coming to the party, definitely?”

If Haseul thinks it’s a little weird how interested Doyoung is in this, she doesn’t let it show. “Almost definitely, yeah,” Haseul says, “not yet done begging him to at least make an appearance, but… his mind is set, so. Which only strengthens my point of needing as many people to show up as usual, so that Jungeun’s party isn’t a total flop—”

“—I’ll show up,” Doyoung cuts in, making Haseul grin wide. It’s a promise he’ll regret making, most definitely, but as far as these things go, Jungeun’s parties aren’t the worst. Maybe if the date goes well, he could drag Youngho there with him and make things a bit more enjoyable.

“Great,” Haseul says. She reaches across the table to pat his hand again, before getting up. Doyoung gives her a quizzical look, to which she replies, “sorry, I really have to get back to work. I’m not even on break right now—don’t tell Baekhyun, though, I think he’d kill me.”

“I won’t snitch,” Doyoung promises and Haseul gives him one last smile before rushing back to work.

.

Christmas comes and goes without much ado. Doyoung celebrates the way he always does, baking subpar gingerbread men with Jaehyun that turn out almost inedible and having a small Skype session with Taeyong, who’s celebrating with his family back in his childhood home. This time, though, there’s the added factor of him checking his phone every few minutes, thinking that maybe Johnny’s going to text him some short wishes and they can get back to talking.

Perhaps needless to say, it doesn’t happen.

Doyoung’s startled back into reality when Jaehyun kicks his shin for the third time that evening. “What?”

“We’re supposed to be watching _Megamind,_ possibly the world’s greatest movie, and all you’ve been doing is huffing at your phone for the past thirty minutes,” Jaehyun whines, sounding like a little kid. “For the whole day, if I’m to be honest. We’re supposed to be celebrating, man.”

“You have no place to criticize me,” Doyoung bites back, though he does lock his phone and slide it down onto the couch. “You’ve been on your phone just as much as me.”

“I have not,” Jaehyun says. He’s lying, clearly, if not for the fact that Doyoung’s not stupid and he’s seen Jaehyun on his phone the whole day, then because his ears are glaringly red against his dark hair. “Not that it matters, anyway. Don’t try to change the topic. What’s on your mind?”

“It’s stupid.”

“It’s not stupid,” Jaehyun says. “Probably. It might be stupid. I won’t be able to judge properly until you tell me what it is.”

“You’re shit at convincing me to confide in you, you know that?”

“It’s our thing,” Jaehyun says, hitting Doyoung’s thigh offhandedly. “I do my best to convince you to confide in me, you insist you’re not going to, and then you break within twenty minutes because at the end of the day, I am your bestie, so. You’re kind of stuck with me.”

“I can always call Taeyong.”

“He’s busy with his family, don’t ruin Christmas for him,” Jaehyun says. “You’re free to ruin it for me, though. All I’m doing is watching a movie with a friend, so.”

“When you put it like that, it makes me even less eager to confide in you,” Doyoung tells him, sighing as he brings his knees up to his chest, curling up against the couch. Jaehyun’s eyes soften just slightly as he furrows his brows together in concern at Doyoung. “Maybe I can wait till tomorrow morning and just call up Haseul.”

“Not Haseul…”

“Or Taeyong,” Doyoung says, “though I think he mentioned something about having plans with his childhood friends, so. Maybe not Taeyong.”

“He’s a little fucked for this,” Jaehyun says. “I’m guessing the issue’s not with Taeyong, then? Since you’d talk to him about it.”

“Who says it’s not about him? Talking to him would just mean our communication is good and shit.”

“If it was about him, you’d be three hours into complaining about whatever he’s done wrong this time,” Jaehyun points out and, well, he’s got a point. “Is it about, uh, whatever guy Johnny set you up with? Youngho, was it? Did my king do something?”

“Other than be nice, he hasn’t,” Doyoung says. “He’s been perfectly fine in all of our texting, as I’m sure you know, considering you’ve been chaperoning it like crazy.”

“I haven’t been chaperoning shit—”

“—I see you looking over my shoulder whenever I get a notification from him,” Doyoung says and Jaehyun exhales guiltily, leaning back against the couch cushions. “You’re not exactly being sneaky, you know.”

“Who said I was trying to be…?”

Doyoung gives him a look and Jaehyun gets the message somehow, slumping in his seat. “It doesn’t matter, though,” Doyoung says, “it’s not like Youngho’s been texting anything interesting.”

“Isn’t he a sexy librarian or something?”

“He’s a boring librarian, if anything,” Doyoung says, paying no mind to Jaehyun’s overdramatic gasp. “I’m trying to give him a chance, I am, I _really_ am, but he’s so boring. I don’t think he has anything interesting to say and all the conversations we have are so dry and I just… I mean, he’s trying, obviously, but it’s just… not working out?”

“Maybe he’s one of those people that’s just shit at texting,” Jaehyun suggests. “Don’t take it personally or anything? Maybe he’s a little awkward or something.”

“Maybe,” Doyoung allows.

“I refuse to believe that’s the real issue at hand,” Jaehyun says, lifting his brows at Doyoung. “I mean, you were all over Kyungsoo when you met him, and we’ve both seen that man. He’s a little awkward at first before he warms up to you and shit, and that was not a problem then, so why is it a problem now?”

“It’s not,” Doyoung manages. He avoids Jaehyun’s questioning look, focusing instead on his phone and tossing it around in his lap. “I’m just not… I don’t know, maybe we’re just not fit for each other.”

Jaehyun sighs, throwing a pillow at Doyoung. “I’m not stupid,” he says, ignoring Doyoung’s whines, “I know you did not just say you’re not fit for someone, when you haven’t even met him. And when texting him’s been fine. Youngho’s not the problem, is he?”

Doyoung levels him with a look that Jaehyun understands to mean _shut up._ He sighs, his brows jumping up for a brief moment, and Doyoung knows he’s going to be the topic of gossip between him and Taeyong for the next few days.

“Can we just…” Doyoung waves his hands, “not talk about it? It’s nothing serious, yeah, just… I don’t know. Not in the vibe.”

“Okay,” Jaehyun says slowly, “if there’s any way I can help, though, feel free to tell me?”

“For now, we can just watch the movie,” Doyoung says, before he narrows his eyes, “ooooor you can tell me what’s been keeping you so tethered to your phone…?”

“What is it with gay men and their need to gossip,” Jaehyun mutters, as if he hadn’t been the one trying to convince Doyoung to gossip with him—or vent, though those are practically synonyms, if Doyoung doesn’t think too hard about it. “Nothing’s been keeping me tethered to my phone. Who even says that?”

“Something’s been keeping you on your phone,” Doyoung corrects. “You even missed half of _Megamind_ , which is—in your words—possibly the world’s greatest movie. So?”

“So nothing,” Jaehyun tells him. Doyoung stares at him and he stares right back, the two of them engaged in a staring contest, before Jaehyun’s phone pings with a new notification from where it’s lying on the sofa. The two of them lunge for it, but unfortunately Jaehyun is the slightest bit faster ( _and_ is closer to his phone). He cradles the phone to his chest protectively, glaring at Doyoung. “Back off,” he says, “it’s nothing important, anyway.”

“Then why are you guarding your phone with your life, practically?” Doyoung says. Jaehyun doesn’t respond, narrowing his eyes, and—oh. “Is this about the date you went on, like a week ago?” Jaehyun flushes, confirming it, basically, and Doyoung grins, “it is, isn’t it? God… why does love always win.”

“So what if it is,” he says. He lifts his phone, clearly now considering Doyoung a null threat, and unlocks it, eyes sliding over whatever message he got. His lips curl into a smile before he remembers Doyoung’s right there, and he presses his lips into a thin line, giving Doyoung a cautious look. “I don’t want to ruin it.”

“You’re not going to ruin it by giving me a few details, come on,” Doyoung whines. He leans his cheek on the back of the couch, looking up at Jaehyun with wide eyes, only to not have him budge. Unfair. It always works when Taeyong does it. “Would it hurt you to make my gossiping with my bestie-slash-roommate dreams come true?”

“Yes,” Jaehyun says. “Leave me alone.”

“At least now you get to see what it’s like on the other side,” Doyoung says. “Come on, just give me something. You shouldn’t be making me force every detail out of you, it ruins the whole fun of it.”

“That’s the goal.”

“You’re useless,” Doyoung says, throwing a pillow at Jaehyun for emphasis. Fuck that man. “I bet you’ve already told Taeyong _all_ about it,” Jaehyun flushes, _again_ , and Doyoung rolls his eyes, making a mental note to pester Taeyong into telling him. “I hate gay people.”

Jaehyun doesn’t humor him with replying, focusing instead on typing back on answer to his date—and Doyoung’s going to go insane if he doesn’t get the details of that within the next couple of days, but he’ll let him off the hook for now. _Megamind_ ’s playing on the TV and as much as he’ll clown Jaehyun for saying it’s the best movie ever made, it’s certainly up there on Doyoung’s own ranking. He’ll figure out all the ins and outs of Jaehyun’s love life in due time, he’s sure.

.

Johnny calls him three days later.

It’s terrible timing. Doyoung’s getting ready for his date with Youngho, already having ironed his clothes and now touching up his face with some minimal makeup. In the end, he decided (mostly due to Taeyong’s insistence) that instead of moving the date till after New Year’s, Doyoung will go out with Youngho on the twenty-eighth, breaking the annual tradition of him and Jaehyun picking Taeyong up from the airport every year.

“Are you sure?” Doyoung asked, when Taeyong told him not to call the date off. “Obviously I want to go out with Youngho,” and that left a bitter taste on his tongue, “but I’m fine with waiting a week or two before it. Youngho, too, by the sound of it.”

“Has he been texting you non-stop?” Taeyong said, his interest clearly piqued by the way he straightened in his seat on the Skype call. “Is he that interested? You shouldn’t take the chance, then. Just go on the date with him on the twenty-eighth.”

“Shouldn’t take the chance?” Doyoung asked, mock offended. “Are you suggesting he’s going to fall out of love with me?”

“I never said he’s in love with you in the first place,” Taeyong teased right back. “Still, you shouldn’t reschedule. Who knows who might sweep him off his feet between now and then if you do? And, you know, if all goes well, he could be your New Year’s kiss. Wouldn’t that be sweet?”

“That sounds like straight out of a Taylor Swift song,” Doyoung told him. “Are you sure, though? I really don’t mind rescheduling it.”

“I’m sure,” Taeyong stressed. “I’ll be fine with just Jaehyun picking me up, really. Don’t worry about it.”

So, Doyoung tries his best not to worry about it. He’s a bit disappointed by having to wait a few more hours to see Taeyong, only because he’s got a date with Youngho. At least it means he has a chance to get all dressed up and hopefully have fun, even if his date is just… a boring librarian. Doyoung sighs, leaning closer to the mirror as he traces his waterline. His phone rings from the kitchen and he ignores it, too concentrated, and Jaehyun must get annoyed, because—

“Oooh,” Doyoung hears from the kitchen. That’s never a good sign. “Johnny’s calling you.”

He couldn’t have heard that right. “Who?”

“Johnny,” Jaehyun says. “Johnny Suh? Your sexy little bartender friend?” He pops up behind Doyoung in the bathroom mirror, almost making him jab the make-up brush into his eye. “Unless you know some other Johnnys.”

“Just the one,” Doyoung mutters. He sets the makeup brush down on the sink, turning to peer at his phone as Jaehyun holds it up to his face, and—Jaehyun’s not lying to him. “He’s actually calling? Or are you just pranking me?”

“Do you really think I hate you that much?” Jaehyun says. “It’s him.”

Doyoung stares at the phone and before he even has the chance to think about what he should do, the call ends, and he rips the phone out of Jaehyun’s hands. “Oh, fuck,” he says. “Should I call him back?”

“What for?” Jaehyun asks. He leans on the threshold of the bathroom, briefly glancing at all the equipment Doyoung laid out on the sink earlier. He’s dressed surprisingly well for a picking-up-Taeyong-from-the-airport errand, though Doyoung barely pays any attention to that, too shellshocked. “He ignored you for like, almost two weeks. Fuck that man. Don’t call him. You’d just be wasting your time.”

Doyoung’s phone starts ringing again.

“Should I… pick up?” Doyoung asks, glancing at Jaehyun, who still looks rather unimpressed. “Look, okay, he’s like—what’s that greek mythology thing. He’s holding out an olive branch for me. I should pick up, shouldn’t I?”

“He treated you like shit,” Jaehyun says, gently, but the words still dig uncomfortably into Doyoung’s skin. “What’s to prove he won’t treat you like that again? There’s no point to this, Doyoung, you know that.”

And—Doyoung _does_ know. He does, he does, of course he does, but as he stares at his phone, all he can think about is Johnny, playing on a loop in his mind. “What if he won’t?”

“What’s that thing he told you?”

“What?”

“That thing, with the rules and all,” Jaehyun says.

“Oh,” Doyoung says. “If he doesn’t call you, he doesn’t want to call you,” Doyoung recites. “If he treats you like shit, he doesn’t care about you. And—and, if he wants to see you, he’ll find a way to see you.”

“That’s… borderline creepy as hell, but whatever,” Jaehyun says, waving a hand. “Point is: I mean, you got the point, I think. So what if he’s calling you now, he was an asshole for the past two weeks and didn’t do shit. If he really wants to make it up to you, he’ll try harder than a half-assed call right before your date.”

Doyoung stares at Jaehyun, then at his phone as it stops ringing. He holds it close to his chest, sighing. “And if he’s not calling in a romantic way?”

“Then it’s even better to ignore him, isn’t it?” Jaehyun says. “You know you’re still hung up on him. It’s going to be easier to get over him if you don’t go back to being as close to him as you used to be, you know.”

“Right,” Doyoung says. He nods, taking a deep breath, and straightening. “You’re right, yeah. I’m not—it’d be useless to give him the time of day.”

“Attaboy,” Jaehyun tells him and Doyoung doesn’t grace him with a reply, instead giving him a look. Once Jaehyun’s gone, he holds his phone out in front of him, staring down at the TWO (2) MISSED CALLS FROM: JOHNNY SUH. He watches as a new notification appears—Johnny left a voicemail, clearly, and he just barely stops himself from swiping it.

Jaehyun’s right, after all. Doyoung’s got a date with Youngho, who might not be… Johnny, but he is nice, seems caring, has his funny moments. He’s attractive, too, judging from the selfies he’d sent, and it’s clear who’s the better option.

Doyoung deletes the notification, stashes his phone in his pants pocket, and goes back to getting ready for his date.

.

“Hey, Doyoung,” Johnny says in the voicemail, voice almost shaky. “It’s Johnny. I was just—wondering how you were doing? I mean, it’s just been a while since we’ve talked and I, uh, I was wondering how you were doing.” He clears his throat, “anyway, I was hoping to talk to you. Obviously,” he laughs, self-deprecating, “but you’re busy. So, uh, call me? Sometime? Or tonight. I’m by the phone, like, all the time.” He pauses, almost embarrassed. “Right. Okay. This was Johnny. Bye.”

Doyoung deletes the voicemail off his phone, not listening to it once.

.

The date with Youngho goes okay. Just okay.

Doyoung doesn’t have any complaints, but he doesn’t have much praise, either, when Youngho pulls him close, kisses his cheek and bids him goodbye. Doyoung wraps his jacket tighter around his torso, watching him go, and doesn’t find his heart beating too fast, doesn’t find himself excited to tell Taeyong and Jaehyun all about how it went.

Youngho was nice. He was nice, he was kind, he listened to every word Doyoung said attentively, replying appropriately. He didn’t even look off-put when Doyoung accidentally let it slip that he was in the middle of rehearsing for a play, even going so far as to ask Doyoung to tell him what it’s about. He paid for the date, too, not even giving Doyoung a moment to pretend to reach for his wallet. He seemed to like Doyoung, too, smiling at him brightly, telling Doyoung to keep him updated on the play and tell him where to get tickets so he can go see him.

If only Doyoung liked him back.

He could probably. He does, just not in the romantic sense, though he’s sure his feelings could develop into that. Youngho is nice, kind, even funny at times. He’s a little… boring, maybe, but it could just be first date stress eating away at his personality, so Doyoung’s willing to look past that.

There’s just… no spark. Doyoung’s not stressed about whether or not Youngho will call him back, because he’s made it clear that he will—and Doyoung’s not even saying that subjectively. He’s not stressed about the prospect of a second date, because for the first time in a while, he doesn’t think _he_ would want to go on a second date with Youngho.

Doyoung sighs. He slips his phone out of his pocket, turning on his heel and going down the direction to his bus stop—though maybe he’ll splurge on a taxi, considering it’ll take him an hour to get home by public transport. Before he makes that decision, though, he has another important thing to do because—if his calculations are right—Taeyong should be home by now. Doyoung dials his number.

It takes three rings for Taeyong to pick up.

“ _Helloooo, Doyoung!_ ” Taeyong says loudly in the phone—so loudly that Doyoung has to pull it away from his ear. He scowls, even if for only a moment, unable to fight his smile.

“You’re that happy to hear from me?” He says. “I find that hard to believe.”

“ _You’re my bestie, of course I’m happy to hear from you,_ ” Taeyong says, half in sing-song, and—okay. That’s strange, even for Taeyong, but Doyoung doesn’t have the chance to interrogate him about it. “ _So, how was your date? With the sexy librarian?_ ”

“Not a sexy librarian,” Doyoung tells him and Taeyong lets out a noise of protest. “It was fine.”

“ _Just fine?_ ” Taeyong asks, clearly not buying it. “ _Am I going to actually have to beg you for the details of a_ date _? No way. Are you sure this is actually you and not just some fake wannabe Doyoung?_ ”

“Very funny,” Doyoung says. “You’re just hilarious, aren’t you.”

“ _So I’ve been told._ ” Doyoung makes a mental note to tell Jaehyun to stop indulging Taeyong in his shitty sense of humor so much. “ _But, come on, there’s gotta be something_.”

“There’s nothing,” Doyoung says, “or, like. I mean, there _are_ details, but they’re not very interesting? I don’t know. I’m not too into Youngho, to be honest.”

“ _Is it… mutual?_ ”

“He seemed to like me,” Doyoung says. He slips his free hand into his pocket—it’s cold as hell. He hates December weather. “I think there’ll probably be a second date.”

“ _A second date you don’t want to go on, I assume_ ,” Taeyong says. Doyoung doesn’t bother lying and telling him any different. “ _Will you go? On a second date, if he asks you, I mean_.”

“I don’t know,” Doyoung says. Taeyong hums in response—and Doyoung realizes he’s been an absolute shit friend, dampening Taeyong’s good mood completely. “But it doesn’t matter now,” he rushes to say. “How was your trip? How’re you feeling to be back, finally?”

“ _Oh,_ ” Taeyong laughs. “ _It was okay. You know how family trips are. It’s,”_ he pauses, _“it’s good to be back, though. Feels really nice, actually. I’ve missed—I’ve missed you and Jaehyun, so. You know.”_

“Aw, and you’re not just saying that to cheer me up?”

“ _No promises,_ ” Taeyong says, smile evident in his tone.

“And you’re back home already, yeah?”

“ _Uh. Almost?_ ”

“What do you mean, almost,” Doyoung says, exasperated. He checks his watch and it’s nearly ten; Taeyong’s flight landed at seven. That’s more than enough time to get back from the airport to their apartment in the case of bad traffic, and Doyoung’s almost certain the roads were practically empty. “It’s been three hours. Was your flight delayed? No, I would’ve known. Why aren’t you home yet? Did Jaehyun’s car break down again?”

“ _Calm down, god,_ ” Taeyong says, though he’s clearly more amused than annoyed. “ _We took a detour_.”

“A detour.”

“ _We’re gay people, Doyoung_ ,” Taeyong says. “ _You can’t expect us to go straight home_.” Taeyong giggles at his own joke and Doyoung sighs, loudly, into his phone, to let Taeyong know that he thinks he’s insane.

“What detour did you take?”

“ _Mm, you know_ ,” Taeyong says. Doyoung does not know. “ _Anyway, we should be back home soon. Or relatively soon? Probably before you, but maybe not at all. Oh, are you coming home by bus? Then we’ve got even more time to make it back before you_.”

“Right,” Doyoung says. “You want to pick me up, maybe? It’s cold as hell.”

“ _You know, I’m sure Jaehyun would love to act as your own personal chauffeur,_ ” as if he doesn’t act like _Taeyong’s_ own chauffeur—and, really, Doyoung has to talk to him about his double standards, “ _but we’re kind of. Uh.”_

“You’re kind of what?”

_“Kind of indisposed at the moment,_ ” Taeyong says. “ _Well, the car is. Jaehyun got into a car accident._ ” He pauses as Doyoung sighs, before adding, clearly very pleased with himself, “ _baby’s first accident. No, that sounds like he peed himself. Baby’s first car accident_.”

“Is that why you’re so happy?” Doyoung asked. “Is it because you’re amped up on the pain meds from the accident? Because, really, you should be more worried—”

“—you _should be more worried, if anything,_ ” Taeyong tells him. He doesn’t even give Doyoung a chance to register the possibility that the accident was more serious than he’s making it out to be, because he continues, in the same happy-go-lucky voice, _“I know nothing serious happened. You don’t_.”

Doyoung rubs at the bridge of his nose. “So you’re okay? Jaehyun’s okay?”

_“Yesss.”_

“So why isn’t Jaehyun saying anything?” Doyoung asks. “Normally, he’d be screaming shit in the background just for the chance of being heard. He hasn’t said anything for the duration of this phone call.”

“ _He’s fine,_ ” Taeyong says, a small huff of laughter at the end of his words. “ _He’s a bit too busy to shout anything to you, considering he’s outside, currently arguing with the other driver that it’s not his fault_.”

“Was it?” Doyoung asks, before he shakes his head, already knowing the answer. “Whose fault was it?”

“ _Jaehyun’s,_ ” Taeyong says. “ _Must’ve gotten distracted or something, beats me._ ” And that’s an inside joke, clearly, because he giggles into the mic, again, and Doyoung bites back his umpteenth sigh. “ _The other driver’s kinda cute, by the way. Want me to set you up_?”

“Very funny,” Doyoung says, even though any other occasion he probably would’ve been up for it. “Aren’t you going to go help Jaehyun?”

“ _Yes, duty calls,_ ” Taeyong sighs. “ _What is it about me that yells mediator? I don’t deserve this shitty job._ ”

“You were captain of the debate team in high school, weren’t you?”

“ _Irrelevant,_ ” Taeyong says. “ _Anyway—I’ll have to get going to, you know, help my king out. We’ll probably be home late so like… don’t worry about us, yeah?_ ”

“Yeah, yeah,” Doyoung nods as he hears Taeyong unbuckle his seat belt, hears the car door click—and he practically hears a light bulb go off over his head as he stops dead in his tracks in the middle of the street, almost making someone knock into him. He ignores the dirty look he gets, instead running through all the proof in his mind. “Wait,” he says, interrupting Taeyong’s half-assed goodbye. “Wait, hold on.”

“… _yes_?”

“Are you—what’s going on,” he says.

“ _Uh,_ ” Taeyong stammers. “ _What do you mean…?”_

“I mean, what’s going on,” he says. He resumes walking, hoping he’s still going in the right direction but too amped up on getting the truth out of Taeyong to check. “You’re _way_ too happy after a car accident, one, and after a long flight, two. _And_ to make it worse, you took a detour after said long flight. I know you, Taeyong. The only shit you want to do after coming home from your annual holiday trip is sleep it off in our apartment, preferably with some shitty animated movie playing in the background.”

“ _I just… didn’t feel like it?_ ” Taeyong says. “ _And the car accident thing was funny._ ”

“It wouldn’t be funny to normal Taeyong,” Doyoung says, though—if he thinks about it, it probably would, considering Taeyong’s quirky like that. For the sake of argument, though, he doesn’t go back and correct himself. “So. What happened? Are you going to spell it out for me?”

“ _Um,_ ” Taeyong says. “ _Do I have to?_ ”

“I’m not going to force you,” Doyoung says, “so, no, not really.”

“ _But you want me to, don’t you?_ ” Doyoung doesn’t grace that with a reply. “ _I’ll tell you when we get home? Or like, sometime around that. It was supposed to be a secret._ ”

“A secret?”

“ _Not a secret,_ ” Taeyong rushes to correct himself. “ _Well, kind of. I just mean we were going to tell you together. We_ are _going to tell you together, just, you know. Later.”_

“Later,” Doyoung repeats. Taeyong makes a noise of affirmation. “You’re going to tell me that you’re dating when you get home, aren’t you?”

There’s commotion on the other side of the line. If Doyoung had to guess, it’s probably Taeyong getting back into the car and shutting the door, but he’ll pretend to be clueless. “ _No,_ ” Taeyong says. “ _Yes. Fuck, don’t tell Jaehyun you know already._ ”

Doyoung smiles. “I won’t,” he says, “congrats, by the way. So the whole thing you told me, about the two of you not being serious in college, was bullshit?”

“ _Kind of,_ ” Taeyong says. “ _It’s complicated. You’re going to act surprised when we tell you, okay? It’s like, a whole thing.”_

“I’ll do my best,” Doyoung promises, knowing he’ll probably forget and disappoint Taeyong, figuring Jaehyun won’t care much about it, anyway. “Was he really sleazy? When you went out.”

“ _I might’ve taken some creative liberties when telling you how it went,_ ” Taeyong says, laughing. “ _He wasn’t. He wanted me to set that clear, too. Sorry for lying in the first place._ ”

“At least it worked itself out well,” Doyoung says. He moves his phone from his ear, glancing down at his dropping battery level and—mm. “My phone’s dying,” he tells Taeyong, “and you’ve got your prince in distress, waiting to be saved by you from… an accident of his own doing. We’ll talk when we both get back to the apartment?”

“ _‘Course,_ ” Taeyong says. “ _You’ll tell me all about how your date went, and I’ll disclose all the details—well, not all, but I’ll tell you about how everything went down here, too. Deal?_ ”

“Deal,” Doyoung says, too tired to negotiate. “See you at home, Taeyong.”

“ _See youuu,_ ” Taeyong says, and promptly hangs up.

.

Youngho texts him back to arrange another date the very next day and Doyoung doesn’t respond, staring at his phone when he sees the notification and setting it aside, away from his sight, without much thought. It’d be cruel, wouldn’t it? Leading him on when he has no mind to actually commit to dating him.

“Would it?” Taeyong asks, despite the fact that yes, it would—and Doyoung knows, because he has his morals in check. “He’d be your back-up plan.”

“I’d be settling,” Doyoung tells him, “and that’s _such_ a shitty thing to call someone, oh my god.”

Taeyong shrugs, licking his ice cream spoon. They’re sitting on the couch, with Taeyong technically in the middle of working on designs for a clothing line he’s dead set on creating one day and Doyoung in the middle of perfecting his character in _Weldon Rising_. In practice, though, they’ve ditched that an hour ago, resorting to eating ice cream and listening to a playlist of Taylor Swift’s best classics (read: all of her songs) on loop.

“Settling isn’t that bad,” he says.

“Right, because once you and Jaehyun broke up, you obviously settled with someone else instead of hopelessly pining over him for like, five years,” Doyoung says and Taeyong kicks him, hard. “What? It’s the truth.”

“Yeah, and you’re an asshole,” Taeyong says, though he’s smiling—and, god, gay people are bad enough, but gay people _in love_? The most annoying people Doyoung has met. He’s lucky enough that Jaehyun’s at work now, otherwise he’d have to go back on his words and say that no, love is decidedly not love. “Look, if you don’t want to, don’t go on the date with Youngho. I wouldn’t.”

“God, I miss when you were an incel together with me,” Doyoung mutters. “This sucks ass. Now you just give me bad advice.”

“Do you _want_ me to tell you to go out with Youngho?”

“No,” Doyoung admits, “but at least you’d be forcing me to go out on a date. Instead of spending the rest of my foreseeable future sad and alone, because Youngho’s the first man who actually wants to date me.”

“There’s been more men who wanted to date you,” Taeyong says.

“Oh, yeah? Name one.”

“We don’t have to get into specifics,” Taeyong says, waving his hand. He digs his spoon back into his ice cream, now all melted, and frowns. “But, okay. Let’s get to the bottom of this. What’s the actual reason you don’t want to date Youngho? I thought you said he was nice.”

“Just nice,” Doyoung says. “Not like, I don’t know, not spectacular or anything. It just doesn’t seem enough for me to actually commit to him. Or does that make me a terrible person? Oh, god, this is what all the men who went out with me felt like.”

“No,” Taeyong says. Doyoung gives him a look, thinking of the text he’d left unanswered on his phone, and Taeyong sighs. “Kind of? But you’re not an asshole about it.” Doyoung’s bound to disagree, but—well. He doesn’t mind pretending he’s the greatest person alive, not at all, so he shuts his mouth. “You can let him down gently, just don’t… ghost him. That’s a shitty thing, you know that. That’d make you an asshole about it.”

“Right.”

“But is nice not worth trying again?” Taeyong asks. “you said it yourself: he might’ve just been stressed on the first date. Or something. The way you get, sometimes.”

“I definitely did not add that last part.”

Taeyong shrugs. “Still true.”

“I don’t know,” Doyoung says, leaning back in his seat. “It just doesn’t seem worth it. Is that shitty?”

“It’s not,” Taeyong says. “You don’t have to like everyone you go out with. You don’t have to give them second chances, if you aren’t—I don’t know. You don’t have to give them second chances, if you don’t see a future with them.”

“I guess not,” Doyoung says. “So where do we go from here?”

“Mhm,” Taeyong hums. He sets his bowl of melted ice cream aside on the coffee table, moving closer to Doyoung. His hand falls into Doyoung’s hair naturally, arranging it away from his face. “I wasn’t kidding when I said the driver of the car Jaehyun rear-ended was kind of cute,” he says, pressing a kiss on the crown of Doyoung’s head. “Jaehyun does have his number. He could set you up, if you’d like.”

“The last time he set me up was with Seungyoun,” Doyoung says, leaning into Taeyong’s touch, “and we all know how that ended up.”

“Maybe he really did lose your number,” Taeyong teases, resting his cheek on Doyoung’s head. “What about Johnny?”

The opening notes of Taylor Swift’s _the 1_ play into the air between them and Doyoung reaches for his phone, skipping the song as his throat runs dry. “What about him?”

“He called you yesterday, didn’t he?” Taeyong asks. He did—but Doyoung hadn’t told Taeyong that, which means only one thing: Jaehyun. “Have you responded? Or—he left a voicemail, right? Did you listen to it?”

“I deleted it,” Doyoung admits. He did—he doesn’t regret it, not really, though he does wonder what Johnny could’ve said. Did he try to get back at Doyoung? Or was he trying to fix things? Does it even matter? No, not really. “I don’t know. I don’t think he could’ve said anything to fix how we’d left things. How I left things. God, I think I was an asshole.”

“You weren’t,” Taeyong says. Doyoung looks up at him, doubtful. “Okay, you were, kind of,” he amends, “but it’s—it’s not like Johnny wasn’t acting kind of shitty to begin with, with the whole the people I date don’t matter to me at all schtick.” He frowns, pausing the way his hand is rubbing circles on Doyoung’s back, “kind of like all the guys you dated, to think of it. That you liked, I mean.”

“Are you trying to tell me I have a type?”

“Let’s say no, because that’d be such a terrible type to have,” and though it’s an insult to Doyoung’s taste, he’s not exactly wrong. Taeyong’s quiet for a moment and Doyoung closes his eyes, focusing on his touch. “You still care for him, don’t you?”

Doyoung exhales, pretending he needs a moment to think about it. “Yes,” he says, finally, even if it makes him a pathetic little incel. “I’m not—I’m not going to run after him, I know I’m worth more than that. But I just… I don’t know. I keep thinking about how it could’ve worked out, maybe, because it was really nice while it lasted. And I know I’m probably just idealizing it, know that it could’ve turned out terribly, too, but. I don’t know.”

“It’s hard to let go of what could’ve been, isn’t it,” Taeyong muses. “What if he did all the things he told you about?”

“What do you mean?”

“Like, you know,” Doyoung opens his eyes to give him a questioning look and Taeyong rolls his eyes. “The whole, if he really wants to be with you, he’ll find a way. Which sounds… questionable, at best, but we’ll just look at it in the most innocent way possible. What would you do if he did that?”

“If he found a way?” Doyoung says. “That’s terribly broad, isn’t it?”

“If he tried,” Taeyong corrects, “to prove himself to you. If he did that thing all the Disney movies have, where the protagonist has to prove to the love interest that they really care for them or whatever. You know what I mean.”

“I don’t know,” Doyoung says. “I don’t know if he’d even go that far.” _If I’m worth that much to him_ , he thinks but doesn’t say, deciding that’s the kind of thing he can sad tweet about—or post on his fake deep tumblr account. “Does it matter, anyway? To think about the hypotheticals.”

“Has he called you again?”

“This morning,” Doyoung says. It’s the fourth call from Johnny in half as many days, this time missed because Doyoung was in the shower. “He didn’t leave a voicemail, though. Or any texts or anything.”

“Not even a voice recording?”

“Not even a voice recording,” Doyoung smiles. “I don’t know what he wants. Probably to page me for all the drinks he gave me on the house the several times I went to his bar.”

“Don’t you want to find out?” Taeyong asks. “Maybe he just wants to talk to you. Maybe, as foreign a concept as it may seem, he misses you as much as you miss him.”

Doyoung laughs, the sound grating to his own ears. “Yeah, right,” he says. “Can we talk about something else?”

“Doyoung…”

“I’m serious,” Doyoung says. He sits up straight, Taeyong’s hand falling from his head, and rests his elbow against the couch. “Anything else, just not this.”

Taeyong sighs. He toys with his hands for a moment, clearly trying to think of something, before he lifts his head. “Oh, I’ve been meaning to tell you—Jaehyun and I are going to Jungeun’s New Year’s Eve party. Do you want to come with?”

“Right,” Doyoung says—he’d forgotten about that. “Haseul told me about that. Couldn’t you have told me about it before her?”

“Sorry,” Taeyong at least has the decency to look sheepish. “I meant to, just, uh. Kept forgetting?” He chews on his lip. “We can always stay back,” he says, “and celebrate like we usually do. If you want to—you know.”

“Haseul told me Johnny’s not going to be there,” Doyoung says, because that’s what Taeyong’s skirting around. Though usually that’d be entertaining, now it just makes Doyoung feel empty. “And you don’t have to cancel your plans just for me.”

“What, are you going to stay here alone and watch a New Year’s Eve special?”

“Obviously not,” Doyoung says, though that does seem much nicer than going to Jungeun’s party and risking running into Johnny, even if he’s not supposed to come. Or—it seems much _safer_ than that. Doyoung doesn’t know what he’d do if he saw Johnny again, so. “It’s not my ideal New Year’s plan, but.”

“We can stay,” Taeyong says. “It’s not that important.”

“I’m not going to make you stay because I don’t want to go to a party,” Doyoung says. “I know you want to show each other off, I’m not dense. I reserve the right to leave at any time I want, though.”

“Obviously,” Taeyong says through his blushing, and it’s as endearing as it is annoying. “So you want to go, yes? We really can stay—”

“—I said it’s okay,” Doyoung grabs Taeyong’s hand, squeezes it lightly. “Just take it.”

“Fine,” Taeyong says, “but if you’ll want to, we’ll leave at any time, okay? Even before midnight.”

“Okay,” Doyoung says, knowing full well he won’t take Taeyong up on that offer. “Now, come on, _Paper Rings_ just started playing and I’m not missing a word of this masterpiece. I’ll start it over again if you interrupt.”

And Taeyong laughs, taking Doyoung’s hand as he offers it, letting Doyoung drag him around the room in a pale imitation of dancing without protest.

.

_sorry_ , Doyoung writes to Youngho, later that evening. _the date was really nice, but i’m still hung up on someone else. i’m really sorry._

Youngho doesn’t respond and Doyoung wonders if he knows who Doyoung’s hung up on.

.

The New Year’s Eve party comes too soon, giving Doyoung little time to prepare. It shouldn’t really be as big of a surprise as it is; Doyoung spent the last few days of the year so swept up in his _Weldon Rising_ script, texting Sooyoung to figure out some nuances in the dynamic between their characters—and there’s also been the countless end-of-the-year shopping trips with Jaehyun and Taeyong, done mostly to drag Doyoung out of the apartment. The only good thing that comes with everything passing so quickly is that he’s not really thinking of Johnny anymore, the name barely crossing his mind, and—well. Once it stops, entirely, he’ll be able to fully move on.

That’s a good thing. Isn’t it?

“Doyoung, you’re going to make us be late,” Taeyong says as he bursts into Doyoung’s room, clearly unfamiliarized with the concept of doors and privacy. “You’re not even—oh my god, I thought you were getting ready. What are you doing?”

Doyoung narrows his eyes at him, setting his phone down on the bed. Taeyong’s already dressed, even if much too lightly, in a mixture of leather and mesh. All in the name of fashion, Doyoung supposes.

“What does it look like I’m doing?” He says, reaching to readjust the pillow behind his back. “You can just go without me, you know. It’ll be awkward if all three of us show up, anyway. And embarrassing. I don’t want to be known as the guy who third wheels like it’s his job.”

“You wouldn’t be third wheeling,” Taeyong tells him with an eye roll, going up to Doyoung’s wardrobe to fish through it. He doesn’t wait for Doyoung’s approval—probably knowing that if he’d ask, Doyoung wouldn’t give it. “Plus, it’s better if we go all together, since carpooling is good for the environment and all.”

“I’d just go by bus,” Doyoung says. “I think that’s even better.”

“You don’t want to spend more money than you have to, right?” Taeyong says and Doyoung doesn’t bother pointing out that the more money in question is pocket change, because Taeyong is right, unfortunately. “If you go with us—by car—you’re not going to be paying Jaehyun back for gas, obviously, and won’t spend a cent.”

“I’m sure Jaehyun would be very happy to hear that.”

Taeyong ignores him easily. “We can just wait in the car a bit while you go in, if it’s that embarrassing for all of us to enter at once,” Taeyong drags out a button-down, scowling at it before forcing it right back into Doyoung’s wardrobe, mindless of how many creases it’ll get with his careless handling. Doyoung frowns. “Come on, Doie.”

“What, are you scared I’m not going to come at all if I don’t go with you?” Doyoung half teases, deciding he’ll get to the bottom of this—and, as if on command, Taeyong stills. “I promised I’d come, Taeyong. I’m not going to go back on my word.”

“I know,” Taeyong says. He sighs, letting go of Doyoung’s clothes, turning around to face him. “I just…hnghgn.”

“Taeyong,” Doyoung says and Taeyong understands immediately, joining Doyoung on his bed. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” Taeyong says.

“Taeyooong,” Doyoung whines, reaching for Taeyong’s hand, folding their hands together and tugging Taeyong further up his bed. “Come on. You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to, obviously, but it’d probably make you feel better…?”

“Not you reusing the exact same speech I give you,” Taeyong says. He relaxes against Doyoung slightly, eyeing their linked hands carefully. “I just…”

“Is it about the New Year’s Eve party thing?” Doyoung asks and though Taeyong shakes his head, he continues, “because you really don’t have anything to feel bad about in relation to that, you know that, right? Besides, if we celebrated it as we did usually, I’d third wheel _so_ much it’d be ten times more embarrassing, so.”

And that hits a nerve. Taeyong doesn’t laugh, barely even smiles. “You keep joking about it, but you know you’re not just a third wheel, right?” He asks. “You’re not a third wheel to begin with. You’re our friend. Our best friend. It’s the three of us against the world and all the other clichés, you know that, right?”

“I do,” Doyoung says—and he does, really. Though their group’s dynamics have changed because of Taeyong and Jaehyun getting together, it’s not like they’ve changed much. It’s not like they leave Doyoung on the sidelines—at least not as much as he jokes about it, so.

It’s more Doyoung being bitter that he’s the only one of them three that’s going to be lonely for the nearest future, which—well. It’s not a great thought. It’s also not a reason to make Taeyong worry about something that’s not even his fault, Doyoung knows, so he gives Taeyong’s hand a squeeze.

“I know,” he says. “They’re just jokes, that’s all. Don’t worry about it.”

“Okay,” Taeyong doesn’t look like he fully believes him but that’ll come sometime soon, hopefully. “So you’re going to go with us to the party?”

“I fell right into that one, didn’t I,” Doyoung sighs, biting back a smile, as Taeyong grins, practically jumping off the bed and going right back to his wardrobe, trying to find an outfit he deems acceptable. “Fine, sure. I’ll come with. As long as you let me go in first and wait fifteen minutes before following me inside.”

“Are we that embarrassing?”

“As long as you promise me to wait fifteen minutes before following me inside, no questions asked,” Doyoung corrects.

“Promise,” Taeyong says, rolling his eyes again. “What do you want to wear?”

“I thought you were picking it for me?”

“You still have some options,” Taeyong says. “I just want to give you some choices you can fall back on, in case you have no ideas. Or in case your ideas are shit, which—let’s just end it at that, actually.”

“That’s definitely not how I’d say it works,” Jaehyun cuts in, entering Doyoung’s room to join Doyoung on his bed, because of course he does. He steals one of the pillows Doyoung had behind his back, putting it behind his own, and Doyoung can’t even find it in himself to get mad about it. “But whatever makes you happy, bae.”

“Right,” Doyoung agrees, “if I were to pick an outfit not approved by you, you wouldn’t shut up about it.”

“You two make me out to be such a bad person,” Taeyong says with no real bite. He pulls out a sweater and throws it on Doyoung’s bed without a glance. “I know you appreciate it, though.”

“No comment.”

“You’re going to have to hurry, though,” Taeyong takes out a pair of pants, eyes them, then goes to set them down on the bed, picking the sweater back up. He gives Doyoung a serious look, “we’re already running later than we should be. I don’t want to be _too_ late.”

“I’m the one who complains about shit like this,” Doyoung says, watching dejectedly as Taeyong goes back to his wardrobe. He reaches to thumb the pants Taeyong laid out on the bed: a pair of black denim, thankfully not ripped like Taeyong’s own. “Not you.”

“Besides, it’s sexy to be fashionably late,” Jaehyun says. “Trust me.”

“We’re not fashionably late if we’re three hours late.”

“It’s a New Year’s Eve party,” Jaehyun says, sounding terribly exasperated. Doyoung wonders offhandedly if they’ve finished their honeymoon phase but one glance at Jaehyun reveals that he still looks incredibly enamored, so. “There’s no set arrival time. Jungeun will be happy if we come at ten till midnight.”

“We’re not coming at ten till midnight,” Taeyong says.

“Just an example.”

“I’ll try to be fast,” Doyoung promises, if only to cut that short. “You can even give me one outfit and I’ll just go shower and put it on, promise. Won’t even complain.”

Taeyong pauses. “You won’t complain?”

“I… won’t complain,” Doyoung says, because what’s said is done. “Just give me whatever you think is best.” Taeyong grins, going back to his closet and shuffling through it with impossibly more excitement. Doyoung tries not to sigh, leaning back on his bed and resting his head on Jaehyun’s thigh. Jaehyun just gives him a half-hearted pat in comfort.

It doesn’t take Taeyong too long to come up with an outfit. Doyoung’s stopped paying attention to him wrangling things out of his wardrobe after giving him full permission to pick out whatever, instead focusing on trying to figure out what tiktoks Jaehyun was scrolling through, the audio just barely audible to him.

“So?” Taeyong asks. Doyoung looks up to find him standing at the foot of the bed, almost terrifying in the way he has his eyebrows raised, arms crossed, head tilted expectantly at Doyoung. Almost, because Doyoung knows Taeyong well enough to not be scared of him. “You can go try it on, now.”

Doyoung gives him a look, reluctantly getting up. Taeyong shamelessly takes his place. He doesn’t curl up with his head on Jaehyun’s thigh like Doyoung had, but that’s probably just to save his hair, already styled. “You two don’t have to stay here while I go try it on.”

“I’m comfortable, don’t worry,” Jaehyun says, probably to be annoying. _Definitely_ to be annoying, given the way he’s smiling, the way his eyes flit to Doyoung, terribly amused.

“You don’t have to wear it,” Taeyong says, despite Doyoung giving him full permission to pick anything. “I just thought it’d look nice, but if you’d prefer anything else, then go ahead.”

“I’ll see how it looks first.” Doyoung gathers the clothes Taeyong spread out on his bed and slips out of his room to the bathroom, figuring he might as well get fully ready now to save time. It gives him the added benefit of slightly annoying Taeyong, too, which is always great.

The end result looks—good, actually.

Doyoung can’t deny that Taeyong had done a good job finding an outfit for him, even if it’s just a black turtleneck paired with black denim and a black blazer. Even if it makes it seem like he’s regressing to his emo days—which wouldn’t even be that far from the truth. He leans closer to the mirror, dragging a hand through his hair. Maybe the party’s not going to be a bust after all, he thinks.

.

“This is sooo fucking boring,” Doyoung says, when Jaehyun joins him on the balcony. It’s two hours till midnight, which means there’s at least three more hours to go before Doyoung can leave. Nightmare. He wants nothing more than to be home, curled up on the couch, watching a New Year’s Eve special that features Maryla Rodowicz. “Don’t tell Taeyong I said that, though.”

“No promises,” Jaehyun says. He closes the balcony doors carefully, giving Doyoung a look. “Are you not cold out here? It’s like, below zero degrees.”

“That’s what you came out here for?”

“I just hadn’t seen you around for a bit,” Jaehyun says. “It’s probably fucking boring because you’ve locked yourself out on the balcony instead of actually… being normal.”

And—well, yeah. Probably. Doyoung doesn’t give him the satisfaction of being right, though.

“It was boring in the first place,” he tells him, which isn’t even that much of a lie. He spent the first hour flitting around the party, greeting Jungeun and the rest of his friends that he’d stumbled upon, but it wasn’t anything monumental. He did get flirted with a few times, so it’s not like he can really complain, though. “Mostly just counting down till the fireworks, now.”

It’s not even that the party was boring, really.

It’s more that the few times someone approached him, making brief smalltalk before asking for his name and/or number, all Doyoung could think about was Johnny. Johnny, who’d used similar situations to give Doyoung a flirting 101 class. A how-to-act-in-public class, if Doyoung’s being honest and in the mood to be humbled. That was already bad enough, but the next step Doyoung’s mind took was to Youngho, who Doyoung rejected because of Johnny, and the whole ordeal didn’t exactly put him in a great mood.

Hence, the balcony escape.

“Maybe you could convince Jungeun to put on some end of the year special,” Jaehyun tells him. “Hear a bit of whatever shitty old pop song they’re playing to celebrate. Would that make you feel better?”

“We get it, you’re different and only listen to Arctic Monkeys.”

“I’m surprised you’ve heard of them, they’re very underground.” Doyoung shoves him half-heartedly. “Anyway—I was supposed to tell you if I found you: Haseul’s looking for you.”

“Haseul’s here?” Doyoung asks. “Is she… with anyone?”

“Her girlfriend,” Jaehyun says. Doyoung keeps looking at him expectantly, nerves buzzing under his skin, and Jaehyun grins at his obvious unease. “What? Is that not what you meant?”

“You know what I meant.”

Jaehyun rolls his eyes. “There’s no bartender in sight,” he says. “Is that a good thing?”

“Yeah,” but it’s not, not entirely, because stupid as he may be, Doyoung might’ve still held some hope that Johnny would… do something. “What’d Haseul need me for, anyway?”

“Probably just wanted to say hi,” Jaehyun says, “you know, the kind of shit you do at parties like these. Or maybe she wanted to make sure you really came and didn’t just bribe us to tell everyone that you came.” When Doyoung gives him a look, he only adds, “what? Not my fault that shit’s right up your alley.”

“It’s always _sooo_ nice to talk to you,” Doyoung says, sighing as he stands up straight, giving up the peace that was his time on the balcony before Jaehyun joined him. What a time it was. “Can’t you go bother someone else?”

“Everyone else’s already busy doing something,” Jaehyun says. “You’re the only miserable partygoer who’s been on the cold balcony for the past hour.”

“Thanks.”

“No offense,” Jaehyun tacks on, clearly not meaning it. “Come on, though. You’re not going to spend all of New Year’s Eve alone, out on the balcony, are you? It’s like my grandma says: what you do on New Year’s Day, you do all year long. Do you really want that?”

“Are you…” Doyoung narrows his eyes. “Are you trying to give me some overdue pep-talk? Stage an intervention? What, haven’t fulfilled your yearly quota for that yet?”

“Funny as all hell,” Jaehyun tells him. “Are you going to come inside? Or do you want to leave? We can go back home, if you want—Taeyong, too, probably, as long as you find him. No clue where that man is.” He turns back to the balcony door, hand extended towards the door knob. “Or do you want to stay here? Though it doesn’t seem to be doing you any favors.”

“Haseul wanted to see me, didn’t she?” Doyoung says. “We might as well go back inside. If you see me back out here later, just close your eyes.”

“And now I can also introduce you to my high school friend who is here as well, by some miracle,” Jaehyun says. “Or, uh, miracle’s _too_ generous, maybe. He’s here, though. It’s a little exciting.”

“Ooh, is it Sehun?” Doyoung asks, though that seems a bit too unlikely. “I’ve always wanted to meet that king.”

“I only met Sehun in college, keep up,” Jaehyun says, pulling open the balcony door. The music that had been muffled is now loud, echoing in Doyoung’s head—and that’s another reason he left to stand on the balcony, actually. “It’s Yuta.”

Yuta, as in the same Yuta who Doyoung went on a date with; the same Yuta who told Doyoung not to call him as he’d be out of town and out of touch; the same Yuta who Doyoung then wouldn’t stop calling or texting for a week; the same Yuta who blocked Doyoung after that whole thing. It’s as mortifying to Doyoung as it is funny to Jaehyun, who keeps pestering Yuta for details to use to no doubt bully Doyoung later.

In response to that, Doyoung takes the first chance to slink away. He makes it to the sofa, sinking down on it and sending nasty glares towards the two of them, before deciding it’s not worth it and wringing out his phone. He scrolls through his thirty something notifications (most of them being tyonglee added to their story) and frowns when he sees another missed call from Johnny. He must’ve accidentally set his phone on silent—or on Do Not Disturb, and he tries not to sigh as he turns that off.

Though it was probably for the best, he can’t stop himself from thinking about what Johnny possibly wanted—what he’s been wanting, considering he’s called Doyoung at least once each day. It’s worrying, actually, and Doyoung just slides open his chat log with Johnny when someone sits down next to him, wrapping an arm around his shoulders in a one-arm hug.

“You made it!” Haseul’s voice is incredibly loud as she shouts almost straight into his ear, and Doyoung scoots a bit away as subtly as possible. “I thought you might’ve changed your mind about coming.”

“Of course not,” Doyoung says. He locks his phone, slipping it back into his pants pocket. “You’ve been looking for me, right?”

“Mhm,” Haseul hums. She takes a sip of whatever’s swishing around her plastic cup, “yeah, to make sure you came and all.”

“What, there’s an attendance list?”

Haseul gives him a look, rolling her eyes with a slight shake of her head. “You just haven’t been around the café these days,” she tells him.

“I haven’t been around because it’s been closed,” Doyoung says, “and Jaehyun hasn’t been working.”

“What, so you only come around to see Jaehyun?” The answer’s mostly yes, but Doyoung’s a feminist, so he shakes his head no. “See? You should’ve come by, then.”

“The only thing you’re doing now is scaring me away from coming by,” he says and Haseul scoffs, going in for another sip of her drink. “I’ll come by sometime in the New Year, though.”

“Promise?”

“Only if you give me free coffee,” Doyoung says. “I don’t know when I’ll find the time, though.”

“It’s not that hard to find time for a small coffee break,” as if his visits to the café are just that. Every time, without avail, either Jaehyun or Haseul join him, helping him waste even more of his time away and extending their short breaks. “What’s got you so booked and busy?”

“I wonder,” Doyoung says dryly. Haseul gives him a look, confused. “My play?”

“Oh,” she says, leaning forward to set her drink down on the coffee table. “Right. Right! Oh my God, how’s that going? You’ve been having rehearsals for, like, forever, now. When’s opening night?”

“January 18.” Though Haseul nods, he’s near certain she’s going to forget. If she does, Jaehyun can always clue her in… though, on second thought, maybe Doyoung’ll just text her about it next week. “Rehearsals’ve been going on for just over a month. That’s not _that_ long.”

“Agree to disagree,” Haseul says. “What’s the name of the play?”

“ _Weldon Rising_ ,” Doyoung tells her.

“ _Weldon Rising_ , January 18,” she recites—and maybe she will remember, actually. “That’s so exciting, actually. Oh, wow. You’re going to be an actor!”

Doyoung doesn’t bother telling Haseul he’s acted before, in multiple productions—doesn’t even get the chance, because Haseul’s pulling out her phone, opening instagram, and pulling him closer by the shoulders to take a photo. “What’re you doing?”

“Taking a photo,” Haseul says. She presses her cheek to his, her hold on the phone flimsy, and Doyoung has half a mind to stop her as she lifts it in front of their faces. “A photo with future broadway star Kim Doyoung,” she adds. Her finger hovers over the shutter button before she stops, pulling away from him slightly. “That’s okay with you, right?”

He relaxes against her hold. “Yes,” he says, “it’s fine.”

Haseul beams at him, clearly pleased with his answer. She forgets all about personal space once more, practically crowding Doyoung. It takes a couple of tries before she snaps a satisfying enough photo, though Doyoung has no qualms about posing a few times. Besides getting Jaehyun to take a few photos of him, Doyoung hasn’t had his photo taken today, so he’s a little attention starved. Or something along those lines.

She types out the caption, adding some sticker that Doyoung has to stop himself from commenting on, and tags him in the photo. “I’m posting it to my story,” she tells him, more to warn him rather than to get permission but Doyoung nods his approval nonetheless before leaning back against the armrest.

“ _Weldon Rising_ ,” Haseul repeats, just as she posts the photo. “What’s it about?”

“Uh,” Doyoung says, because despite having the script memorized by heart, he still has little idea. “Something about a heatwave?”

Haseul hums, stashing away her phone—and only once that’s done does she seem to catch the meaning of his words. She sends him a glance, brows pulled together. “A heatwave,” she says and Doyoung can’t do much else other than confirm. “Any plans after it?”

“There’s… a bit,” Doyoung says. There’s more than a bit, in fact; there’s rumors of a new Broadway show being resuscitated and Doyoung now has enough experience to consider trying out for it. It’s much too early to spoil news like this, though. “All in due time, though, so.”

“All in due time,” Haseul repeats. “Actually, speaking of—how’d your date with Youngho go?”

“My date with Youngho?” Doyoung asks weakly. He forgets about how his love life acts as free entertainment for just about every single one of his friends because of how he can’t shut up about it every time he meets someone. It’s a habit he definitely needs to work on, especially when his love life is so painfully embarrassing, and he makes a mental note to add that to his New Year’s resolutions.

“Yes?” Haseul says. “Unless you rescheduled it…? I asked Youngho, but he’s not the biggest gossiping fan, so. I’m stuck with you.”

“Thanks,” Doyoung mutters, trying his best to think of something to say. “We didn’t reschedule it, no, uh.”

“It went that great?” Haseul deadpans, sarcasm thick on her tone.

“It was okay,” Doyoung says, ready to repeat the same speech he gave Taeyong. “Youngho was really nice. He’s just… I don’t know, it’s not on him or anything. I just didn’t really feel like we clicked and didn’t want to lead him on.”

“Lead him on?”

“It’s… complicated.” Despite having no brain to mouth filter when it comes to oversharing, even Doyoung’s well-aware that telling Haseul that he had to decline a second date with Youngho because of his unrequited feelings for Johnny, who was her brother, isn’t the greatest idea one could have. And, besides, though he trusts Haseul, siblings talk, and the last thing he needs is this getting back to Johnny. “It’s fine, though. Other fish in the ocean or whatever.”

“I guess,” Haseul says. She reaches for her cup, quiet, and Doyoung’s mind overheats as he tries to figure out a good enough subject change before Haseul says anything else.

“What, uh,” he stammers, and Haseul gives him a weird look. He clears his throat, taking a moment. “Jaehyun said you came with your girlfriend—uh, Kahei, right?”

Haseul’s features relax momentarily, eyes softening and lips turning into a gentle smile. “Yeah,” she says, “she’s um, she should be somewhere here…” She trails off as her eyes sweep over the room before they stop, and Doyoung follows her gaze to see a group of people standing near the threshold of the kitchen. “She’s over there,” Haseul confirms his suspicions, “I can introduce you, if you’d like? You’d probably get along well, actually. She’s an actress, too, so.”

And that piques Doyoung’s interests, if nothing else. “Nice,” he says, “I’d love to meet her.”

.

Kahei is lovely, even if a little intimidating. She holds an arm around Haseul’s waist and talks with Doyoung, face impassive as they trade brief descriptions of their past acting ventures. Despite the fact that Doyoung’s older, her list is longer than his; “started young,” she offers as means of explanation. It’s as humbling as it is interesting and, before too long, Doyoung finds himself hanging onto her every word to hear more about the industry giants she’s already managed to work with.

Of course, he doesn’t get much of a chance, because Haseul spots someone familiar in the crowd and drags Kahei with her to go introduce them. Doyoung doesn’t trail after them, as much as he’d like to, instead resigning to his fate and slipping back into the crowd of people.

He has half a mind to go back out on the balcony, but ever since Jaehyun dragged him back inside, it’s been occupied nonstop by smokers and vapers alike going onto it in turns. Speaking of, though, he could find Jaehyun and pay him back by annoying him to no end. It’s a great idea, really, and Doyoung hides a smile in his cup as he searches the room for him; he’s standing by the wall with Taeyong, and that’s _even_ better, Doyoung thinks, until he makes out their expressions.

They’re… not great, to say the least. Jaehyun’s holding his phone out in front of him, but it seems to be long forgotten, what with the way his brows are pulled together over his eyes. Taeyong’s not much better, frowning, arms crossed against his chest, and Doyoung swerves away from them. All his love to them, but he’s definitely not interrupting whatever the hell they’re in the middle of, lest he gets dragged into it.

Instead, he finds himself by Jungeun’s side, talking with her about the party—then he’s being dragged to dance with Jongin, who he just met earlier that night—then he goes to pour himself another drink and is consequently joined by Yohan, who insists he’s a bartender in training—and so on and so forth.

Doyoung doesn’t even realize it’s nearing midnight until Jaehyun invades his personal space, wrapping one arm around his shoulders and the other around his elbow as he apologizes to the group of people Doyoung was in the middle of conversation with and promptly drags Doyoung away—to Taeyong, who’s half-sulking on the balcony.

“You let _him_ take my spot?”

“It’s not your spot,” Jaehyun says, letting go of Doyoung, though a hand still lingers on his elbow. “It’s Jungeun’s balcony.” Doyoung opens his mouth to protest—he spent a good hour here before Jaehyun forced him off, so it’s not like he doesn’t have any right to the balcony—but Jaehyun doesn’t give him a chance. “Anyway—there’s a thing?”

“There’s a thing,” Doyoung repeats. Jaehyun nods and the corners of Taeyong’s lips drag impossibly further down. “There’s,” he checks his watch, “there’s twenty—less than twenty minutes left till the New Year. I don’t know if there’s time for a… a thing.”

“I didn’t even say what it was,” Jaehyun says.

“What is it?”

“Uh,” Jaehyun glances at Taeyong for help. “It’s, uh…”

“It’s a surprise,” Taeyong says, though he doesn’t look all too happy about it. Doyoung worries that the frown on his face is engrained there. “You don’t really need the details.”

“A surprise,” Doyoung repeats. “What’s the surprise?”

Taeyong glances at Jaehyun and the two seem to have a silent conversation before Taeyong’s eyes briefly flit to the sky and his features relax, lips lifting from a frown. “It’s… this thing,” he says, as if that does anything to elaborate it. “It’s a surprise. We can’t just tell you what it is.”

“We just need you to go up to the roof,” Jaehyun tells him.

“I—Jungeun has access to the roof?”

“Theoretically no,” Jaehyun says, “none of the tenants do, apparently, but the door’s always unlocked. The sign says it’s connected to an alarm and that opening it will trigger it, but that’s been proven not to be true.”

“Once,” Taeyong adds.

“That’s been proven not to—Taeyong,” Jaehyun sighs, giving him a look, and Taeyong only shrugs in response. Doyoung narrows his eyes at the both of them, trying to figure out what exactly is going on. “You promised you wouldn’t… you know.”

“Just thought Doyoung should know the alarm could possibly be triggered,” Taeyong says.

“See, I agree with Taeyong here,” Doyoung says, shifting closer to Taeyong, making Jaehyun’s hand drop from his elbow. There’s not many chances to miss the physical contact, because Taeyong wraps an arm around Doyoung’s shoulders, lips turning up into a grin. “That feels like something I should know before you send me up on the roof.”

“So you will be going?”

“I—no, obviously not,” Doyoung says. “I’m not insane.”

“Do you not trust me?” Jaehyun asks. Doyoung eyes him, ignoring the way he can see Taeyong shaking his head no in his peripheral vision. “You just need to trust me.”

“And go out on the roof,” Jaehyun nods, “and possibly trigger an alarm, yeah? Sounds like a dream.”

“I’m not trying to get you arrested,” Jaehyun says. “Have I ever—actually, no, let’s not go that route. Do you really not trust me?”

“I do,” Doyoung says. “Mostly. I just… can you not tell me what you want me to go on the roof for? You’re not making much sense.”

“That’s where the surprise aspect comes in,” Jaehyun says.

“The surprise that I’m guessing Taeyong doesn’t think is a good idea,” Doyoung says, turning to glance at Taeyong, who doesn’t hide his agreement. “And if I’m to trust the judgement of one of you—well.”

“You’re terrible,” Jaehyun says. Doyoung has to bite back his smile and Taeyong snickers behind his palm. “You too, Yong. Look, Doyoung—if you don’t want to, you don’t have to go out on the roof. I’m not going to force you, obviously, but do you really want to miss out on something that could be great?”

“Or it could be a letdown,” Taeyong says, “and something you absolutely do not need at this point.”

“But it might also not be that,” Jaehyun argues. “You won’t know until you go up there.”

“And possibly trigger the alarm.”

“There’s no alarm,” Jaehyun says, “you _saw_ me open the door, Taeyong, and nothing happened.”

“You might’ve just been lucky,” Taeyong says. Doyoung catches his eyes, bright in the dark, and only then notices the grin that’s threatening to push through, and it’s clear Taeyong’s just trying to rile him up. And while that’s exciting as all hell, the minutes are quickly ticking by, and Doyoung really doesn’t want to miss the countdown.

He tunes the two of them out and eyes the door to the balcony, trying to figure out if he could somehow slip Taeyong’s hold without notice. It’s not impossible, theoretically, more so the more invested Taeyong and Jaehyun become in their bickering. Doyoung just needs to find the right moment.

“Doyoung,” and his hope is shattered. “Will you go up to the roof?”

“Uh,” Doyoung tries not to frown at Jaehyun. It’s clear that whatever he’s planned means a lot to him, if only by how persistent he’s being, and Doyoung hates to let him down—though on the other hand, the whole issue with the alarm is eating at his skin. Not to mention the now ten minutes left till the New Year and… well. It’s not looking too great. “I’m not too convinced…?”

Jaehyun sighs. “Do you really not even want to see what the surprise is?”

“The cons outweigh the pros, so…”

“Jaehyun’ll open the door,” Taeyong cuts in, suddenly, “so that—well, so that if the alarm _is_ triggered, it’s not on you. It’s really, mm, it’s worth checking out, if nothing else. Worth seeing for yourself if it’s worth it.”

“If it’s worth it?”

Jaehyun ignores his question completely. “Now that it’s got the Taeyong stamp of approval, will you go up to the roof? Because I’m kind of running out of options and time here, actually.”

“I,” Doyoung slips his eyes off Jaehyun’s expectant gaze and instead onto Taeyong, who’s nodding his agreement, and knows there’s no use delaying the inevitable. “Fine,” he says, “I’ll go up to the stupid roof.”

“Thank god,” Jaehyun says. “I don’t think you’ll regret it.”

He doesn’t even give Doyoung a chance to question the lack of certainty, already dragging him back into Jungeun’s apartment, Taeyong trailing behind them. As they make the rather lengthy trek up the stairs to the roof, Taeyong and Jaehyun push Doyoung to the front and make hushed conversation behind him, the tones of their voices considerably lighter than before, and Doyoung occupies himself with trying to figure out what they could’ve planned.

There’s not a lot of options, because what do people even do on New Year’s? There’s no surprises to be made, not really, but Doyoung does his best to cycle through the option. If this was any other occasion, he’d be willing to consider this being the set-up for a blind date, but one, it’s New Year’s Eve and two, both Taeyong and Jaehyun are aware of how fucked everything has been going for him in that department, so. It’s possible it has something to do with his play—what are the plot points in _Weldon Rising_? Maybe Jaehyun’s trying to trigger a nationwide heatwave to make the play become reality.

Those are his two best guesses and… well.

“Here we are,” Taeyong says, making Doyoung snap his head up and come almost face to face with the roof door. There is a large sign warning Doyoung not to, under any circumstances, open it, as it is connected to an alarm. Jaehyun pays it no mind as he shoulders past Doyoung, pushing the door open without any hesitation.

Doyoung still half expects an alarm to ring out—it’d be just their luck, after all—but the hallway remains as silent as it had been (as silent as it could’ve been, with all the muffled music), just significantly colder.

“See?”

“How’d you even figure out it wasn’t actually connected to the alarm,” Doyoung asks, cautiously following Jaehyun and stepping outside. “Did you just… open it?”

“Yes,” Jaehyun says.

“In his defense, it was an accident,” Taeyong says. He’s lingering in the threshold, arms wrapped tightly around his torso to shield him from the cold. At Doyoung’s questioning glance, he adds, “Jaehyun didn’t read the sign,” which does little to actually defend Jaehyun.

“Are you sure Jungeun doesn’t mind?” Doyoung asks instead of following that road.

“So long as you don’t get caught, she’s fine,” Jaehyun tells him. He glances at his watch, pauses to decipher it, and looks up at Doyoung. “So—uh, you mind staying here?”

Doyoung goes to nod his head, just as Taeyong adds, “alone.”

“Alone?” Doyoung repeats. “Alone? You want to lock me up on Jungeun’s roof, alone? What? This is supposed to make my New Year’s better how, exactly?”

“We never said it was going to make it better…?” Jaehyun says, as if that’s going to convince Doyoung that them locking Doyoung up on a roof is a completely non-malicious activity. “Look, it’s just… uh… said surprise is not a three-person activity?”

“What I’m hearing is you want me to count down to midnight freezing and alone,” Doyoung says.

“You won’t be alone,” Taeyong says. Jaehyun gives him a look, mouthing something, and Taeyong straightens in his place. “Or, uh, I mean… Jaehyun can give you his coat?”

“What?” Doyoung and Jaehyun manage to say at the same time, presumably shocked at different parts of Taeyong’s statement.

“I can give him my coat?” Jaehyun asks, incredulous. “Why can’t you give him yours?”

“I don’t need either of your coats,” Doyoung cuts in, before fixing Taeyong with a stare. “What did you mean? I won’t be alone?”

“Uh,” Taeyong says.

“It’s a surprise,” Jaehyun says, “it’s—you’ll find out, let’s just leave it at that. All you have to do is stay here, okay?”

“So you _are_ going to lock me on the roof,” Doyoung says.

“We’re not—we’re not locking you on the roof,” Jaehyun says. “You can open it and come back inside whenever, we’re not insane. Just—give it a chance?”

“Give it a chance,” Doyoung says.

“You can come back inside whenever,” Jaehyun stresses. “You don’t have to hear—uh, hear it out? See it out? You get the point. If you don’t want to, you don’t have to stay here, and can come back inside.”

“…okay,” Doyoung says. This is getting weird. “You can go now. Just don’t make me wait too long—I want to catch the countdown.”

“Hopefully you’ll be able to,” Taeyong says. Jaehyun mutters something Doyoung can’t make out, though before he can ask him to repeat, Taeyong waves his phone at Doyoung. “If you need us, we’re just a text away, yeah?”

“Okay, this stopped being funny, we’re not _that_ codependent,” Doyoung waves his hands at the two of them, “you can go now.”

“Good luck,” Jaehyun says, Taeyong parroting it quickly, and the two of them disappear back into the stairway.

So, there’s that.

Doyoung might as well make use of being up on the roof, he decides, even if it’s cold and nearing New Year’s and he’d really rather be back inside. He makes his way to the railing and leans on it, letting his eyes skip over the city. It’s bright, obviously so, thrumming with noise and excitement, and Doyoung tries to convince himself he’s not missing out. There’s a reason Taeyong and Jaehyun made him come up here after all, he tells himself, instead slipping out his phone.

The minutes tick by slowly in front of him as he scrolls through twitter, catching snippets of the New Year’s Eve program he could be watching right now. The minutes tick by slowly till there’s only ten left before the New Year and he has half a mind to go back inside, to give up on waiting and slip back into Jungeun’s apartment. He turns around, sends a wistful glance towards the door, and—and watches the handle move.

Wait.

Doyoung moves impossibly closer to the railing, pressing his back against it as if it’s possible for him to merge with it and disappear. He slips his phone inside his pocket, nerves at their highest as he watches the door open.

“Hey,” Johnny says.

“Uh,” Doyoung says. He blinks—and Johnny is still there, so he tries his best to subtly pinch himself. Johnny is still there. “Hey.”

Johnny lingers by the door, hands dipped into the pockets of his pants. He looks—disheveled, for lack of a better word, his hair messy, the blazer he’s wearing creased to hell and back, and Doyoung remembers Haseul saying that he has work on New Year’s, that he’ll be busy manning the bar. Maybe he should’ve made her promise that Johnny wouldn’t show up.

“What are you doing here?” Doyoung asks. “I thought you were busy. Haseul said so, at least.”

And that’s—that’s incriminating, if nothing else.

“I wanted to talk to you,” Johnny says, as if it’s not New Year’s and the chance for them to talk hasn’t long since passed. “I have, uh, I have something of yours that I should return.”

“Huh?”

Johnny reaches into his jacket pocket, pulling out a pen. “I think this is yours?”

It glistens red under the streetlights and Doyoung doesn’t have to read the writing on it to know what it says, too familiar after all the teasing Johnny’s put him through. And still he gapes at it, gapes at Johnny’s outstretched hand, at a complete loss of words.

“You came all the way here at ten till midnight to give me back a promotional pen?” Doyoung asks, throat dry. Johnny nods, moving closer, and Doyoung feels his blood freeze. Maybe he should’ve taken Taeyong up on his offer and gotten Jaehyun to give him his coat. “Why?”

Johnny smiles. “I thought I better come up with some excuse to see you,” he says, as if a New Year’s party wasn’t enough. “That’s how it’s done, isn’t it?”

“Sometimes,” Doyoung says. He can’t—he can’t concentrate, not with Johnny in front of him. He knew this would happen if he saw Johnny again, knew he would forget how to act, knew he’d find all rational thoughts gone from his head. “What are you doing here, Johnny?”

“It’s a bit of a long story.”

“I’ve got time.”

“I mean,” Johnny starts, and Doyoung already finds himself hanging onto his words. “I saw—I wasn’t going to come here, you know that. I think you do, at least. I wasn’t going to, but I saw Haseul’s instagram post, and I… I didn’t even think about it before I found myself by Jungeun’s apartment.”

“That’s… not that long a story,” Doyoung tells him.

“It’s not just that,” Johnny says, almost sheepish. He doesn’t let his eyes slip from Doyoung’s. “I had to—I didn’t want to just barge in there. And since I had the pen, I—well.”

“You messaged my friends,” Doyoung says. He thinks back to how insistent Jaehyun was on dragging him up to the roof—and how reluctant Taeyong had been, and it all clicks. “You’re the surprise.”

“…the surprise?”

“It doesn’t matter,” Doyoung says, because it’d be more embarrassing to explain, probably. “How’d you—how’d you get their contact information? Wait, Facebook. Obviously.”

“Uh, it was Soundcloud, actually,” Johnny corrects. “I—the pen? Jaehyun’s Soundcloud account? It was a shot in the dark, in all honesty, but he responded, and after some convincing, he and Taeyong helped me.”

“Soundcloud,” Doyoung echoes, only half-present. “That doesn’t—I don’t know what to tell you, Johnny. There’s a reason I’m not answering your calls. I think it’s pretty clear, isn’t it?”

Johnny stares at him, looking dejected, lips stretched into a thin line, brows hung low over his eyes. “It is,” he says.

And—maybe it’s cruel, maybe it’s not how Doyoung should be going about this at all, but he can’t keep playing into this, only for nothing to come out of it. “I don’t know what to tell you,” he says, again, and Johnny’s face falls that much more. “I just…”

“Look,” Johnny takes a step closer and Doyoung looks up at him, trying to keep his gaze steady. “I can’t stop thinking about you. I—It’s a problem. I drive by your place, I call and hang up. I’m turning into…”

“Me,” Doyoung says.

Johnny laughs. “Yeah,” he says, sounding unbelievably fond.

“Well,” Doyoung swallows, all of a sudden lightheaded as Johnny smiles down at him. “A wise—a wise person once told me that if a guy wants to be with someone, he will make it happen. No matter what.”

“It’s true,” Johnny says, moving closer to Doyoung.

“See, because I’m not exactly following,” Doyoung says, keeping his eyes on Johnny. “When I was trying my hardest to make this, us, happen, you did not seem to want to make it happen. At all.” He pauses, slipping his hands into the pockets of his jacket to stop himself from fiddling with them, “and I just don’t see how you can go from that to… this.”

“Right, so, uh. Here’s the thing about that,” Johnny says, “you were right.”

“About…?”

“About how I make everyone I pursue expendable,” Johnny says, taking Doyoung right back to the night of the party. “About how I have this—about how I have a set of rules to explain the way I act, to rationalize it. And—I’ve gotten so used to keeping everyone at an arm’s length, not letting myself become involved enough to care for them, that I didn’t know what it felt like when I actually… started caring for someone. When I actually fell for someone.”

Doyoung chews on the inside of his cheek, unsure of what to say. “I went out with Youngho,” he settles on and Johnny’s reaction at the name is immediate, hope slipping from his eyes. “I went out with Youngho,” Doyoung repeats, “and now I know what it’s like to pursue someone who cares about you, too. No drama involved; he calls, he does what he says.”

“I could do that stuff too.”

“But you didn’t,” Doyoung says, unable to stop hurt from dipping into his tone. Unable to stop himself from inching towards Johnny, too, for better or for worse. “You didn’t. And—as I’ve been told—I _am_ the rule. I have to stop thinking that every guy will change for me, stop thinking that I will be the—”

The rest of the sentence dies on Doyoung’s tongue as Johnny moves closer, cupping his cheek and kissing him. Doyoung relaxes against his hold, snaking his arms to wrap around Johnny’s shoulders. It only lasts a moment before Johnny pulls away, still in Doyoung’s personal space.

“—that I will be the exception,” Doyoung says, breathless.

“You’re my exception,” Johnny tells him before he kisses him again, to the muffled tune of the countdown to the New Year.

.

Johnny slots himself back into Doyoung’s life surprisingly easily, all things considered. Doyoung’s still a bit on the fence about him—or, rather, he’s trying to be, unfortunately too easily swayed to truly maintain his position. They spend the first few days of the New Year together and go on their first real date at the end of the week, and Doyoung can safely say he’s never felt more happier about a relationship.

Johnny starts picking him up from rehearsals, too, when he’s not busy at the bar. And if rehearsals run particularly long into the evening, he’ll bring Doyoung take-out, and he doesn’t even complain _too_ much when Doyoung kicks him out after that, not wanting to get the play spoiled for him.

“That’s about weddings,” Johnny says, leaning on the threshold of the backdoor of the theatre the first time he comes by. Doyoung would love to let him inside, really, but then he risks Johnny catching glimpses of _Weldon Rising_ , and he’d rather avoid that. “Weddings,” he repeats, “not plays. It’s not bad luck or anything if I see you perform before opening, really.”

“It might as well be,” Doyoung says, not moving from where he’s doing his best to block the view of the hallway—which is futile, considering Johnny can see right over his head. “Sorry, I just don’t want all the excitement to peter out by opening night.”

“It wouldn’t,” Johnny tells him. He reaches for Doyoung’s hand, squeezing it lightly. “It’s fine, though. I’ll see you later?”

Doyoung can’t stop his smile. “I’ll come over?”

“Mhm,” Johnny hums. He tugs on Doyoung’s hand, presses a brief kiss to Doyoung’s cheek. “Sure. Text me when you’re done.”

In short, it’s nice, even if it feels delicate for now, somehow both too small to be serious and too serious to be this small. Doyoung doesn’t spend too much time worrying about that, too occupied with Johnny, who’s following up on his promises, who makes time for him, who goes out of his way to see him.

It’s— _something_ , Doyoung thinks, to be so obviously desired. Something even more when it’s by Johnny, who he’s been pining over for at least the past month. By Johnny, who’s making an effort, letting Doyoung experience for the first time what a well-balanced relationship looks like.

There’s just one last thing to do to make it official:

“You should meet my friends,” Doyoung says. They’re on a lunch date—with their lunches long since finished, currently strolling through some park Doyoung’s dragged them to. Johnny rolled his eyes, mock annoyed, but Doyoung’s nothing if not perceptive when it comes to him, quickly catching Johnny’s smile behind his scarf. “You know. The besties. Taeyong and Jaehyun.”

“I’ve met your friends,” Johnny says, giving him a look, and Doyoung shrugs, swinging their interlinked hands between them. “Or, uh, I guess I’ve just met Jaehyun properly, if that’s what you mean. Taeyong only in passing.”

“You haven’t met them properly,” Doyoung insists. “Not as my boyfriend. And, besides, you’re probably going to end up seated with them at the opening night, sooo. Might as well get the initial awkwardness over with.”

“Me and Jaehyun are practically besties,” Johnny says. Doyoung laughs and Johnny smiles, unable to stay serious as he adds, “I’m serious! You should watch your back. Anytime now, and I’ll be moving into your room while you’re getting kicked out.”

“Haha, very funny,” Doyoung says dryly. “And what about Taeyong?”

“Uh,” Johnny stammers. “He’s not my biggest fan…?”

“He’s not,” Doyoung says. It’s not really a secret; Taeyong pencilled Johnny onto his blacklist after the whole… party debacle, and his dislike towards him only got stronger in the week following it. Now he’s clearly curbing it, holding back any snide comments when Johnny is mentioned, but Doyoung still catches the way his eyebrows quirk, unimpressed.

“It’s because we’ve been watching a lot of romcoms, these days,” Jaehyun explained, when Doyoung complained about it to him, “he wants to become the stereotypical gay best friend. He’ll get over it in due time, don’t worry.”

And Doyoung’s not really worrying about it; he knows Taeyong’s only trying to look out for him, not eager to give Johnny another chance to hurt him. It’s not like he’s completely against Johnny, after all, considering he did help with the New Year’s Eve plan, despite his initial reluctance. He’s just… wary. Knowing Taeyong, that’s going to go away in due time, just as Jaehyun said, but Doyoung has little patience when it comes to matters relating to his love life.

All Johnny needs to do is prove himself to Taeyong—and, considering he’s Johnny, and therefore naturally charming, it’ll take little effort. Doyoung tells him so, now, and Johnny doesn’t look completely convinced. Which is fair, Doyoung decides; if any of Johnny’s friends disliked him, even a bit, he doesn’t know what he’d do.

As is, all of Johnny’s friends adore him. Even Haseul had been ecstatic at the news of them getting together—and that brings Doyoung to having to consider how to best introduce Johnny to his older brother, but. They’ve got time for that.

“How am I supposed to even prove it?” Johnny says. “I feel as though I’d only make matters worse.”

Even though it’s funny to see Johnny shitting himself like this over winning over Taeyong, of all people, Doyoung decides to take pity on him, squeezing his hand tight. “He’s Taeyong,” he says and—right. Johnny doesn’t know Taeyong. “He’ll be obsessed when he sees how happy you make me.”

“I make you happy?” Johnny teases, stopping in his steps to face Doyoung, lips curled into a smile. Doyoung tries not to flush—it’s not embarrassment, not completely, and more the way Johnny’s looking at him, completely ecstatic. “How happy do I make you?”

“Stop, I was serious,” Doyoung says. He tries to resume walking but Johnny stays in his place, holding Doyoung’s hand. “You’re making this more humiliating than it has any right to be,” and Johnny laughs, because of course he does.

“It’s not humiliating,” he says. Doyoung gives him a disbelieving look, and he slips their hands inside his jacket pocket, reaches to readjust his scarf. “It’s sweet.”

“You’re making it sound like I’m your charity case.”

“You’re not,” Johnny rolls his eyes, mock exasperated. “For what it’s worth, you make me really happy, too.”

Doyoung glances at him, catching the endeared look Johnny’s giving him, and hides his smile behind the collar of his jacket. “Who said you make me really happy?” He tries, but fondness leaks through his tone and Johnny’s smile widens.

“Aren’t you an actor?” Johnny asks, “shouldn’t you be better at lying?”

“And you should support me, not push me down,” Doyoung whines. Johnny pays no mind to that, only laughing before he tugs Doyoung close and Doyoung decides he doesn’t mind the teasing all that much.

.

Introducing Johnny (properly) to his friends goes great, just as Doyoung expected. Taeyong tries to keep up appearances, but by the time Doyoung’s letting Johnny out, even he’s sad to see him go. And though Doyoung doesn’t have to, when he comes back into the living room, he asks, “so?”

“So what?” Taeyong asks, pointedly not looking at him. Jaehyun gives Doyoung a somewhat covert thumbs-up from where he’s taking care of the dishes.

“So what do you think?”

Taeyong turns to look at Doyoung, eyes narrowed and mouth pressed into a thin line, as if Doyoung didn’t have a first place seat to Taeyong losing his shit over every other joke that left Johnny’s mouth earlier that night. “I think he’s nice,” and Doyoung grins, wasting no time in joining Taeyong on the couch. “He seems to really care about you,” Taeyong continues, “so. I approve.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Doyoung says. “Anything else to add? Any praises, etc?”

Taeyong rolls his eyes. “I said he’s nice.”

“I’ll pretend I didn’t see you becoming besties with him earlier,” Doyoung tells him, “so you can keep pretending to be a stone cold mafia boss. They’ll never catch you slipping.”

“Fine, oh my god,” Taeyong says, sighing loudly. “I like him,” he admits, “I think you’re good for each other.” He pauses, narrowing his eyes, “do you want to check what your relationship will be like, based off your zodiacs? Or readjust your wedding plans to fit him? Either one works.”

Doyoung doesn’t even bother to think about it. “Bring out the zodiac app,” he says, lying his head on Taeyong’s shoulder. “Let’s see what it says.”

**Author's Note:**

> hope you enjoyed<33 !!
> 
> come say hi on [twitter](https://twitter.com/frouggyu) // [buy me a ko-fi](https://ko-fi.com/frougge)


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